Tracy Quartermaine 100 Situations
by DebbieB
Summary: Written for LJ's 100 Situations Challenge. 100 prompts, 100 stories. This will get into the M category, but each chapter will be labeled with its rating.
1. Table of Contents

This Perfect Little Mistake  
Prompt: #1 Tired  
Word Count: 345 words  
Rating: G  
Summary: Motherhood is sometimes not such a good thing, especially when you're doing it alone.  
Author's Notes: Set just after Tracy has been banished (1993).

Human Behaviour  
Prompt: #2 Back Alley  
Word Count: 1,424 words  
Rating: NC-17  
Summary: Tracy Quartermaine and Larry Ashton take a break from the rehearsal supper for Alan and Lucy Coe's wedding.  
Author's Notes: Set just before Tracy gets together with Paul Hornsby, around 1989. Written while I listened to Bjork's "Human Behaviour" over and over again…..good song for smut writing. PWP, dudes. I don't write them often, but here we go.

Heartless  
Prompt: #3 Sunrise  
Word Count: 873 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Tracy waits for the sun to rise.  
Author's Notes: LuNacy. March 2006; set during the Monkey Fever epidemic.

No Matter the Sacrifice  
Prompt: #4 Late  
Word Count: 1,641 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Dillon is late coming home from school.  
Author's Notes: c. 1996 Set between the end of The City and TQ's return to GH in 1996. While Dillon should be around five, I'm playing the game of Soap Opera Aging and making him about eight.

Master Plan  
Prompt: #5 Son  
Word Count: 2,638 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Young Tracy and Alan discuss career plans.  
Author's Notes: Past!fic. Set at the lake; Tracy is a very precocious 14 years old.

Chili Diablo  
Prompt: #6 Hot  
Word Count: 968 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Luke tries to drum up business for the _Haunted Star_.  
Author's Notes: Set June 2006-ish, in that happy little AU where Luke and Tracy actually have something to do on the show. Pure fluff, and an attempt at humor.

Common Ground  
Prompt: #7 Friend  
Word Count: 1,532 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: On a very difficult day, Monica finds support in an expected place.  
Author's Notes: I always thought there was potential for some sort of friendship between Tracy and Monica, despite their past.

What the Camera Sees  
Prompt: #8 Floor  
Word Count: 1,203 words  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Tracy Williams prepares for a charity function…without her husband.  
Author's Notes: Set during the Mitch Williams years (c. 1981). Before she's been banished, but not by much.

The Art of Negotiation  
Prompt: #9 Cheat  
Word Count: 4,662 words  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: What 17 year old Tracy Quartermaine wants more than anything is an internship at ELQ. What Edward makes her do to earn it…  
Author's Notes: Past!fic. Tracy is home on summer break from boarding school

Think  
Prompt: #10 Think  
Word Count: 699 words  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Bound, gagged, and waiting for Helena Cassadine to come and kill her, Tracy Quartermaine has little else to do but think.  
Author's Notes: Set April, 2005. This is done in stream of consciousness, Tracy's thoughts while she's tied to the wheelchair. Not my usual style, but hopefully it will be a good, quick read. (Probably just my reaction to that whole "plot" thing from the last prompt…. Gods, I'm so lazy!) Some mature content, but nothing overt.

The Gods of Love  
Prompt: #11 Disgust  
Word Count: 619 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: A world-weary Tracy reflects on young love, in all its disgusting glory.  
Author's Notes: Real life has made our girl a little cynical about love.

Cleo & Tony Take on the Winds  
Prompt: #12 Shelter  
Word Count: 4,225 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Two young rebels weather a storm together.  
Author's Notes: Past!fic. Written in response to ILoveTracyQ's request for a young Luke and Tracy story. Both are around 17.

Something Borrowed  
Prompt: #13 Borrow  
Word Count: 1,149 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Tracy looks for something borrowed…  
Author's Notes: Set during the Vow Renewal storyline. May 2006. As my girlfriend, Fey, says, I just can't let the swan dress go already.

La Vie En Rose  
Prompt: #14 Chair  
Word Count: 1,309 words  
Rating: G  
Summary: Tracy teaches Dillon a lesson in culture, and Dillon teaches Tracy a lesson in hope.  
Author's Notes: Past!fic. Set when Tracy and Dillon are living in Europe. Dillon is about eight. Just too sugary sweet for words. You've been warned.

The Game  
Prompt: #15 Alter  
Word Count: 1,667 wprds  
Rating: G  
Summary: Tracy plays a game.  
Author's Notes: AU: Dillon gets Tracy hooked on a game, and it starts her thinking about what might have been.

Parle-moi de ma mere  
Prompt: #16 Peace  
Word Count: 787 words  
Rating: G  
Summary: Tracy has a quiet moment on a rainy French afternoon.  
Author's Notes: Set after the 1981 banishment. Tracy has left her second husband, Mitch Williams, and taken refuge in the French countryside. The title means "Speak to me of my mother," and refers to a duet of the same name from Bizet's _Carmen_ (which I was listening to when I wrote this).

Christmas at the Beach  
Prompt: #17 Beach  
Word Count: 2,443 words  
Rating: G  
Summary: Tracy and Jacob share a drink in The City bar on Christmas night.  
Author's Notes: Set during Tracy's tenure on _The City_, December 1996. Written after reading three months' worth of plot synopses from _The City._

True to the Blood  
Prompt: #18 True  
Word Count: 2,376  
Rating: G  
Summary: Tracy's conversation with Robert doesn't reveal all that's going on inside of her.  
Author's Notes: From the 7/11/06 episode. Tracy and Robert's last scene together, outside Kelly's, seemed incomplete to me. So, um, I finished it.

Session Three  
Prompt: #19 Crazy  
Word Count: 3,922 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Tracy must meet with a therapist for six sessions after minor traffic stop turns ugly.  
Author's Notes: Tracy in therapy. Come on--it had to be done. The flow may feel random; but that's how things go in therapy...she says...um...from what she's heard...

Just Like Precious  
Prompt: #20 Love  
Word Count: 842 words  
Rating: G  
Summary: It's a dog's life. And sometimes, even a dog can find love in the most unexpected places.  
Author's Notes: Oh, the joys of creating a story around a throwaway line. Tracy was chasing the Willoughby's dog out of Lila's rose garden when she stumbled on to Dillon and Lulu in the boathouse.

A Brief History of Humanity  
Prompt: #21 New  
Word Count: 5,618 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Tracy celebrates New Year's Eve with her own private tradition.  
Author's Notes: Okay, this is going into AU territory. According to everything I've read, the Qmaines didn't arrive in Port Charles until Alan was a resident at GH. So the flashback couldn't have happened the way it does here, since the family didn't live in Port Charles when Tracy was seventeen. I don't care. I'm running with it.

Beggar in the House of Plenty  
Prompt: #22 Beggar  
Word Count: 1,551 words  
Rating: R  
Summary: Tracy takes one last chance with Paul before things blow up forever.  
Author's Notes: I totally didn't want to write this. There are some upsetting things in this story—mostly, Tracy in desperate!wife mode. It ain't pretty, but that's what the prompt created. Consent is there; joy is not. Time frame—early 90s. Tracy has just found out she's pregnant with Dillon.

Ned and Tracy's Excellent Adventure  
Prompt: #23 False  
Word Count: 14, 792 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: After being suspended from his posh boarding school, Ned has a wild ride with his mother across the European countryside.  
Author's Notes: This story was too long (32 pages in Word) to post here. I've posted it separately as a multi-chaptered fic.

Happy  
Prompt: #24 Happy  
Word Count: 1,404 words  
Rating: R  
Summary: Luke and Tracy celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary.  
Author's Notes: No plot whatsoever. Just future!fic of my Utopian vision of where Luke and Tracy will be in four years. Realists and pessimists need not apply. There is an NC17 version of this story at my LiveJournal.

The Monster on the Floor  
Prompt: #25 Cancer  
Word Count: 526 words  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Thoughts are a cancer, spreading, destroying, paralyzing.  
Author's Notes: I started a completely different story for this prompt, then decided to save it elsewhere to write as an independent. This is a very dark little piece set in 1980. Tracy fans will probably know where I'm going with this one….

The Pickpocket and the Witch  
Prompt: #26 Pickpocket  
Word Count: 3,190 words  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Tracy confronts Lulu about her choices.  
Author's Notes: Yeah, I'm going there. Gonna stick my nose into the whole Lulu's pregnancy storyline. So. There.

In Which Frank Capra Rolls Over in His Grave  
Prompt: #27 Reverse  
Word Count: 10,413 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: The shoe's on the other foot—now it's Edward's turn to try to win Tracy's love.  
Author's Notes: FeySpirit gave me the idea for this story, although the members of the TQ LoveFest had some great ideas!.

Deliver Us Not  
Prompt: #28 Deliver  
Word Count: 791 words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Tracy has a talk with The Big Man.  
Author's Notes: Just a little stream of consciousness thing about Tracy, just after she had the abortion.

Coco Robichaux and the Girl in the Little Blue Hat  
Prompt: #29 Arrival  
Word Count: words  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Tracy attends an opening night.  
Author's Notes: I don't normally do crossovers, but I just got this little idea on how to connect Tracy to the YaYa Sisterhood. My timeline, based on the books, not the movie, would have Tracy as a contemporary of Siddalee (who is actually older than Sandra Bullock in the books).

As the Snow Falls  
Prompt: #30 Fall  
Word Count: 2,465 words  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: A traumatic ordeal topples a dynasty, and forms a new and lasting bond between Luke and Tracy.  
Author's Notes: AU. This was going to be a much longer story, but I decided to just write the pay-off scene and the hell with all that multi-chapter stuff.

Beautiful Flaws  
Prompt: #31 Knife  
Word Count: 4,165 words

Word Count: 4,165 words  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Luke has made many mistakes in his life, but none as serious as this one. Can he redeem himself in time to save Tracy from her own grief?  
Author's Notes: AU. Sorry to throw another seriously angsty piece at you so soon, but this just came out. WARNING: Character death (not Luke or Tracy).

Title: A Very Good Afternoon  
Prompt: #32 Torn  
Word Count: 1,213 words  
Rating: R  
Summary: It began with a torn stocking…  
Author's Notes: LuNacy Lust. Oh, yeah. Somewhat kinky sensuality; no sex.

Title: Casual Cruelty  
Prompt: #33 Danger  
Word Count: 5,601 words  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Luke comes clean with Tracy about Laura.  
Author's Notes: I've been resisting this, but seeing the clips of Laura's descent into catatonia forced me to go down this road. I'm not going to speculate. I'm just going to write. Warning: Chock Full O'Angst.


	2. 000 Authors Notes

This story is being written in installments for the "100 Situations" Challenge on LiveJournal. The premise is simple—a table of prompts, a single character, pairing, or show, and fanfiction.

I chose Tracy Quartermaine, from the ABC soap, _General Hospital_.

Each chapter will be labeled with the number of the prompt, the word (Tired, Hot, Son, etc.) used to prompt the story, and the story's rating (if it is rated M). All of the stories will be based on Tracy's established canon, although they may jump around in time and feature many characters other than the ones she's currently paired with on the show.

You can read all the stories in order, or jump around based on the prompt.

Thanks--DebbieB


	3. 001 Tired

**Title:** This Perfect Little Mistake  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #1 Tired  
**Word Count:** 345 words  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** Motherhood is sometimes not such a good thing, especially when you're doing it alone.  
**Author's Notes:** Set just after Tracy has been banished (1993).

He was crying again. Tracy groaned, buried her face in the pillow. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to dream, or not dream, or just be somewhere else.

He was crying again, and she didn't have the strength to get up and walk the short distance to the bassinet. She didn't have the strength to pick him up, to say soothing things, make cooing noises.

He was crying again, and she found that without a nanny, without boarding school, without servants and money and status, without all these things--Tracy hated motherhood.

It was horrible. It was evil.

She hated this baby. She hated his softness, his fragile body that leaked in inappropriate places. She hated his crying, his gurgling noises when she was trying to concentrate. She hated his _presence_, his constant need for attention and care and food and formula.

He was crying again, and she wanted to love him. But Tracy had no love left in her heart, especially for this tiresome burden Paul had given her, especially with no support system.

With Ned, there'd always been somebody at this stage--a nanny, a servant--somebody who could help her through the drudge times.

With Dillon, it was just Tracy.

She couldn't even call her mother when he got sick.

The thought made Tracy cry, too, just like Dillon was crying. She pulled herself out of bed, feeling a burst of love and sympathy for this kid who didn't ask for anything but love from his parents, knowing full well that he'd have just as much luck getting it out of her and Paul as she did getting it out of Edward.

"You poor little thing," she whispered as she took him in her arms. "You poor sweet little boy." She held him against her chest, his little heart beating against hers.

He stopped crying. His little body relaxed against her immediately, and his hand clutched for her hair.

Now Tracy was the only one crying, and this innocent little boy...this perfect little mistake...gave her the love she couldn't give to him...

Written for the **100situations** community.


	4. 002 Back Alley rated M

**Title:** Human Behaviour  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #2 Back Alley  
**Word Count:** 1,424 words  
**Rating:** Hard R  
**Summary:** Tracy Quartermaine and Larry Ashton take a break from the rehearsal supper for Alan and Lucy Coe's wedding.  
**Author's Notes:** Set just before Tracy gets together with Paul Hornsby, around 1989. Written while I listened to Bjork's "Human Behaviour" over and over again…..good song for smut writing. PWP, dudes. Fairly Graphic Stuff.

"You really shouldn't smoke," she murmured as he pushed her against the wall. He kissed her, laughing, then backed away to light the cigarette he'd pulled from the silver case he carried.

Tracy snatched the lighter from his hand and leaned forward to take the cigarette between her teeth, grinning as she robbed him of, as he put it, one of his only two vices. She shook her head, blowing him a kiss while placing her fingers in a V around the cigarette, one of those skinny brown European ones he favored, and holding it expertly between her fingertips. "It's a filthy habit," she scolded, miming the act of smoking with the unlit cigarette.

"There are so many more pleasant nasty habits we could be engaging in," he suggested. When she frowned, pretty even now that he officially hated her, Larry Ashton had to laugh at his ex-wife. "You _knew_ I wasn't really looking for fresh air when I asked you to accompany me."

Tracy threw her head back, her laughter deep and throaty. "I figured your tolerance for bullshit was as low as mine," she purred, leaning forward with a sassy grin, her free hand playing with the lapels of his dress jacket. "Can you believe that little tramp actually had _engraved_ place cards?"

"'Dr. Alan Quartermaine and Miss Lucy Coe cordially invite you to chow down at their farce of a wedding rehearsal?' Yeah, I thought you'd find that amusing." He was still trying to get the cigarette from her, but she was too quick for him.

"Alan is such a fool," Tracy said, wriggling out of his arms as he tried to pin her with his body to the wall. "Does he really think the sex is gonna stay that good once the little gold-digger has her claws into him?" She made a big show of flicking the cigarette out of her fingers, sending it flying across the alley till it fell and rolled, useless, on the dirty pavement.

"Oh, I don't know." Larry grabbed her wrists, pinning them against the brick wall of the Port Charles Hotel, enjoying her frustration as he held her captive there for a long moment before kissing her neck. The alley was just outside the kitchen, and he had made sure they were far enough away from the doorway as not to be disturbed. "Our sex life didn't suffer once you'd gotten your claws into me…."

"Bastard!" She bit his ear lobe, hissing the word in his ear as she stifled a moan. Her ex-husband had pushed his knee up between her thighs, throwing her off-balance, forcing her to stumble, to depend on the strength of his hands that held her wrists against the alley wall. "I didn't marry you for your money."

"You married me for my title."

"Which you lied about," she groaned. His knee was pushing steadily upward, spreading her thighs wider. "Oh, god…"

"You married the future Lord Ashton," he whispered into her hair, letting her arms drop as he lifted her sharply, lowering his hands to each of her thighs and pulling them up around his hips. Her gasp was gratifying, as was her look of outrage. She was so much fun to torment, that Tracy Quartermaine. "I have no problem with a little social climbing."

"Arrogant son-of-a-bitch," she whispered. Her teeth grazed his shoulder as he pressed his hardness against her.

"No shame in it, love. I married you for your nubile young body, which I assure you never once disappointed. Why shouldn't you have married me for my title?"

"I was young and horny and wanted out from under Daddy's thumb," she admitted. Larry could feel her faltering, her façade of outrage losing ground to her naturally base instincts. Tracy's libido was second only to his own, and it was an undeniable fact that sex between them was always better when it was illicit. "You were sexy and rich and there. I just went with it." She was baiting him, and he was perfectly happy with that. His beautiful ex-wife didn't have be nice; he could hire people to be nice.

"You were outrageous," he breathed into her hair as he reached down between them to unfasten his trousers. "Remember when you brought me home to meet the folks? You were so innocent, so virtuous." His erection was almost painful--she brought it out in him, this rough, vulgar desire. "Your father would have castrated me if he'd known what we were doing in the stables."

"And the linen closet…and the pool house…" She was wriggling now, no longer even pretending to deny him.

It only took a slight shuffling of undergarments to be inside her, where he wanted to be, where he craved to be even when he hated her with every fiber of his being. "You were a little slut even back then."

"The perfect Lady to your Lord Ashton," she retaliated, knowing that he hated her bringing that up.

He thrust harder in response, reveling in the knowledge that the wall was rough and painful against her back, delighting in her gasps of protest. Her mouth sought his, and for a while it was just grunts and moans and heavy breathing, the stuff of porn films, so classless and vile that it sent him through the roof with pleasure. She weighed nothing to him in those moments, any physical effort dwarfed by the pure ecstasy of the raunchy, completely inappropriate fun they were having. Her arms were tight around his shoulders, her skirt hiked high around her hips, legs crossed behind him as she urged him on with language that would make a sailor blush.

A noise from the other end of the alley sent her into a panic, and she buried her face in the fabric of his jacket as the shock of fear sent her into a powerful orgasm. Her entire body clenched around him, the kind of hard, insane orgasm usually reserved for teenagers, not for mothers of grown sons. Larry felt his own body reacting, and by the time they heard the kitchen door shut again, he was coming hard inside her, moaning into her shoulder as quietly as he could. When he was done, it was all he could to do remain standing. He leaned forward, holding her body between himself and the wall, using gravity to keep them both upright while he caught his breath.

When she finally calmed enough to lower her legs, when they pulled apart and set about the task of tidying up, Tracy actually had the audacity to look embarrassed. "Our son would be mortified," she murmured as she reached down to straighten her garters and hose.

Larry paused to admire the sight--he loved women who wore such pretty things as garters for their own aesthetic value, rather than as a feeble attempt at brazen sexuality. He sometimes wondered if his ex-wife even noticed her own beauty. "Our son," he reminded her as he reached down to finger the lacy garter. "Would not even exist were it not for…" He indicated the dark ally where they'd just had their encounter. "This sort of thing." To the best of their knowledge, Edward "Ned" Ashton had been conceived in the back of a cloakroom at a charity ball held by one of their neighbors. "Not exactly a romantic conception for our one son and heir," he chuckled.

Tracy's mouth screwed up slightly in disgust, then relaxed into a smile. For his benefit, she took longer than necessary to adjust her things, making sure he got a really good, long look at her pale thighs before she lowered her skirt again. A few tugs here and there, and she was once again perfectly acceptable. Her hair was a bit mussed, but that was easily blamed on the wind. The jacket that went with her outfit would cover any smudges from the wall on the back of her shirt. No one would ever know what Tracy had done in that back alley behind the Port Charles Hotel with her no-good scoundrel of an ex-husband.

"You realize this can never happen again," she began as she wrapped her arm in his and they headed back to the party, which would certainly be much more amusing now.

"Of course, my dear," he said. Tracy really was such great fun, Larry Ashton had to admit to himself as he opened the kitchen door and held it for her.

It was truly a pity he was going to have to destroy her.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	5. 003 Sunrise

**Title:** Heartless  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #3 Sunrise  
**Word Count:** 873 words  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Tracy waits for the sun to rise.  
**Author's Notes:** LuNacy. March 2006; set during the Monkey Fever epidemic.

She knew what people thought of her. She'd heard the words for so many years—bitchy, selfish, arrogant, greedy.

Cruel.

Heartless.

Tracy didn't blame them for their words, and she rarely argued with them. She was all those things and more. She'd left her children in the care of others while pursuing her own bliss; she'd schemed and connived and threatened and lied to achieve her own ambitions.

Even her own mother, who'd never had a bad word to say about anyone, had called her frivolous and worried after her soul.

At least Lila thought she had one.

Tracy sat in the uncomfortable chair the hospital provided. Luke had been brought to a private room now as the hospital began to fill with victims of the epidemic. He was sleeping restlessly, having drained his veins in a desparate attempt to isolate the antibodies that had helped him recover from the deadly virus.

She watched him sleeping, his handsome face looking old and bloated, almost too worried in sleep to be recognizeable as Luke Spencer, Savior of the Free World. Tracy brushed a strand of damp hair from his brow with her fingertips.

In this moment, what she wanted more than anything was to be heartless, what they all accused her of being. She wanted to be shallow and mean and careless with the lives of others.

She wanted to be Tracy Quartermaine, instead of this exhausted, worried person she'd become.

Luke stirred restlessly. She started to snap her hand back, like this very act of tenderness was a snake coiled and ready to spring at her. But he quieted, and her hand went where it wanted to go, back to him.

Heartless bitch, she thought to herself as she stroked his forehead. Her son was elsewhere in the hospital under the watchful eye of his unacceptable girlfriend. She wasn't welcome there, not even at this godawful hour, even though she was his mother.

And, heartless bitch that she was, Tracy didn't really mind. It was too hard seeing Dillon that way, too hard watching the disease take its toll on his young body, too hard remembering how many years she'd denied herself the pleasure of being a real mother to him.

No, let Georgie watch over him in his sleep. Let her bear that burden, as long as when he was awake, Tracy had her say.

After all, wasn't it the job of the wife to watch over her husband when he slept?

Oh, god, she thought as she realized what she was doing. Her hand was pressed against his hair, her body leaning forward. It was, what? Five-thirty in the morning. She hadn't slept. She couldn't, not in these surroundings. A catnap here and there, but that was about it.

She'd come to Luke's side, mainly because there was nowhere else to go. She'd come to Luke's side because his sister was too busy, and his daughter was too sick. She'd come to Luke's side because, in her heart of hearts, though she should be furious with him for bringing this on them, Tracy didn't want her bastard husband to die.

He moaned slightly, and she stiffened with fear. Moaning and hospital beds were not a good combination in Tracy's experience, and she moved to push the nurse's call button. Before she could hit it, though, he was calm again.

Nightmares.

She relaxed, moving her hand back to his forehead. It was too hot, she noted, although not as bad as it had been back at the house when he'd collapsed.

She didn't want him to die. It was so strong in her that it frightened her. She didn't want this man, this arrogant, annoying, selfish, greedy, cruel…and yes, heartless man to die.

She wouldn't say she loved him. Love was something altogether different from what she felt for Luke Spencer. Love was waking up in each other's arms after a night of passion. Love was chocolate and champagne on the beach while watching the sunrise. Love was watching his eyes light up when she walked into the room.

It wasn't love, but she cared. And that scared her more than anything. It scared her to care for this man who sent her to other men's beds. It scared her to care for this man who stole from her, risked her life, mocked and humiliated her.

It scared her to look at him and feel that connection, that understanding, that seemed so right and proper between them. To know that her heart would break if he died. To know that, even without love, he was still one of the most important people in her life, and she barely even liked him.

She didn't love him. She could never love him, she knew. Because it was too dangerous. Because they were too much alike. Because she could never trust him, any more than she could trust any man.

And because Luke Spencer, in his own way, was just as heartless as she was.

Tracy leaned forward, kissing his forehead lightly as he slept, resting her head on the pillow beside him. This wasn't love, even though somewhere, she suspected, the sun was rising on a beach where lovers ate chocolate and drank champagne.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	6. 004 Late

**Title: **No Matter the Sacrifice  
**Fandom: **General Hospital  
**Characters: **Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#4 Late  
**Word Count: **1,641 words  
**Rating: **PG  
**Summary: **Dillon is late coming home from school.  
**Author's Notes: **c. 1996 Set between the end of The City and TQ's return to GH in 1996. While Dillon should be around five, I'm playing the game of Soap Opera Aging and making him about eight.

4:58 pm, Eastern Standard Time.

Tracy paced the floor of her beautiful kitchen, gleaming and modern and for the most part, ignored by the mistress of the house. She'd sent the cook out with the nanny, along with at least two of her bodyguards, to search the neighborhood.

The rest of her staff she had calling—every friend Dillon had, every haunt he loved, anywhere he might be off to in his innocence.

Tracy, for her part, could only pace now. She'd put her staff in motion, and they knew what to do. She couldn't do what she wanted to do, which was start running to every door in the building, pounding on it, screaming "where is my kid?" to every person who answered her summons. She couldn't call her rivals, her enemies, screaching like a hysterical woman, demanding to know which of the vermin had snatched her son.

What sort of people would steal an eight year old boy to get back at his mother?

Tracy felt her stomach sink. The sort of people she worked with. The sort of people she sought out.

And why? For money? For power? She'd sought this life. She'd known what sort of snake Gino Solieto was when she picked him up. She'd known where his money came from, and she knew what she was doing when she blackmailed her late husband's partners and took the power she craved.

They said she didn't have the stomach for this kind of work.

She'd laughed at them and puffed her cigar defiantly.

They didn't know the stomach she had. They didn't know what she'd been through, and what she was capable of. And for three years, she'd set about showing them just exactly that—what Tracy Quartermaine, unfettered by such minutiae as laws and family, could do.

And it was glorious. She had everything she wanted—money, power, that charming look of fear in people's eyes when she clicked down the streets in her designer Italian shoes.

She had everything except her kid, safely home in her arms.

It was probably nothing, she told herself. Dillon wasn't used to her being home this early. That in itself would have been good for a stab of guilt to the gut, but Tracy's gut was too overworked with fear right now to notice. She trusted in her staff to get him home, safely, when school let out at 2:30, to keep him occupied, to keep him happy until she was able to get home. That's why she paid them.

None of them ever expected her to come home early today, so they didn't have the good sense to be in a panic over Dillon's failure to return.

"He sometimes goes over to a friend's house, and sometimes he forgets to tell me," the nanny, who was so fired, had told her. "Don't worry—Dillon's a resourceful kid. He doesn't need anybody to watch over him."

Tracy looked the clock. 5:10 pm, Eastern Standard Time.

She felt helpless. Tracy hated feeling helpless. She felt guilty, which she hated even more. She fought the images in her head—her beautiful little boy, her miracle baby, scared, captured, tormented by dangerous looking men in cheap suits. She fought the images that played out, scenarios of what these men would do to her son to send just the right message to the Godmother of the Solieto Crime Family.

What would they do to him?

She buried her face in her hands, pressing her fingertips against her eyelids firmly to ease the pain there. Which one had done it? Which one dared?

Who wanted her out so badly that they would take a little boy, terrify him, maybe even more?

Tracy looked at the phone. It was the one line she'd demanded they leave open, in case Dillon…or his kidnappers…tried to call. It was a tempting thing, that telephone. In just a few presses of the number pad, she could have Lila on the phone. She could have that comforting British lilt in her ear, that warmth that never went away, no matter how horribly Tracy behaved.

But what could she tell her? Lila knew nothing of Tracy's current occupation, at least not that she was aware. She couldn't just call her and say, "Mother, I need you. I'm the head of a mafia family in New York, and I think one of my enemies has snatched your grandson."

No, this was one of those things she had to do alone.

Tracy pulled a chair away from the table and sat, resting her elbows on the polished oak surface as she dropped her face in her hands again. She thought of Dillon, so sweet and trusting, a changeling baby if ever such a thing existed.

What kind of a life was she giving him? What would it do to him to grow up in this world? How long would he stay sweet, how long would he stay unspoiled? How on earth she'd managed to make it this long without destroying that boy's personality, Tracy did not know, but she doubted even Dillon's good heart could stand up forever in the face of the dark underworld in which his mother thrived.

He was a changeling. There was no way that boy could be her son, Tracy thought for the millionth time in his short life. They were yin and yang, Tracy and Dillon, his light to her darkness.

She struggled against the tears. She struggled against the pain and the guilt and the impotent rage. Suddenly, the money and the power seemed futile and childish. She wanted her baby back.

She didn't have the stomach for this business.

They had found her Achilles' heel.

They had forced her out.

Because Tracy knew in every fiber of her being that she was out. She would sell her interest to the highest bidder, sell everything she'd ever bought with this foul money, buy two tickets to Europe, and try to forget this nasty affair had ever happened.

The minute Dillon was back in her arms.

The minute her son was safe.

Dear God, let him be safe. Dear God, let him come home.

She didn't pray. She wasn't Lila, or the type of mother Lila was. She was Tracy Quartermaine, and she didn't beg—humans or gods—for anything. But now she was begging, praying for help. She wouldn't ask for absolution, and she wouldn't offer attonement.

There was no forgiveness for what she'd done. All she could hope for was mercy.

"Mom! You're home early!" Dillon ran into the kitchen, all in one piece, still carrying his knapsack from school. He was like an angel to her, a vision of faith, as he rushed to her side and threw his arms around her shoulders. "I thought you had to work."

She couldn't speak, she couldn't scold, she couldn't do anything but hold him, fiercely, against her. He felt so tiny against her, even though he was growing every single day. Even though he'd be tall, like Ned, when he was a man. She fought the tears even more, now that she knew he'd not been taken. There was no need to frighten him. There was no need for him to know what she'd been through.

"You were supposed to come home right after school," she choked out. "Where were you?"

Dillon pulled out of her embrace, a worried look on his face. He thought he'd been busted, and she could see the gears behind his eyes working, deciding between truth and a lie. "I'm sorry," he muttered, his eyes lowering. "There was a movie at the place on Houston—remember, Mama, where we used to watch Godzilla movies?" He smiled up at her hopefully, then continued when she didn't smile in response. "Well, it was showing _Gamera: Super Monster_ and today was the last day and I had enough money and I thought I told Nanny, but I didn't…"

Tracy put up a single hand, shaking her head with a gentle smile. Her sweet, careless, innocent son. "Don't do it again," she whispered.

Dillon nodded frantically, obviously hoping this little escapade wouldn't end in punishment for him.

If he only knew—

She pulled him in for another hug, kissing his temple and brushing his hair out of his eyes. When they pulled apart, she said, "Go change out of your school clothes. Get started on your homework." He nodded and turned to leave. Before he was out of the kitchen, she added, "I was worried."

"I'm sorry, Mom," was all he said before he ran out of the kitchen, knocking into her assistant on the way out.

"Hey, the kid's back!" It was one of those obvious, stupid things that men said, and Tracy loathed him in that moment. "Ya want me to tell the guys to stop looking?"

Tracy nodded. "Fire the Nanny," she added. God, how she missed Zoe in moments like this. Zoe would never have let Dillon slip out of her fingers for a moment. Of course, Zoe probably wouldn't have continued working for her anyway, once she took over the Solieto business.

"Anton," she stopped her assistant before he left. Her stomach was clenched, her skin cold and clammy. She knew what she was about to do was a form of suicide. She knew they'd be merciless, and she'd be lucky to come out of this with the clothes on her back.

But they were right. She didn't have the stomach for this business anymore, and the sooner she got out and away from it, the better.

No matter the sacrifice.

"Call The Partners. Tell them I want to meet them in the morning. 10 o'clock."

"Yes, Mrs. Solieto," he said. "Is that all?"

"Get my accountant on the phone. I have some things I need to take care of."

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	7. 005 Son

**Title:** Master Plan  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #5 Son  
**Word Count:** 2,638 words  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Young Tracy and Alan discuss career plans.  
**Author's Notes:** Past!fic. Set at the lake; Tracy is a very precocious 14 years old.

Tracy Quartermaine spread her legs in front of her, enjoying feel of the sunlight as she rubbed the tanning oil into her skin. She wasn't sure where Alan had gone off to--probably chasing that stupid blonde girl from Albany he'd met at dinner last night. She rolled her eyes as she remembered her older brother, all ears and face and not much else to notice, trying to impress Miss Sandra Dee herself.

It was positively comical.

Tracy knew a thing or two about women, and she knew that Alan didn't have what it took to snag a Betty like that. He was rich, but didn't show it. He was smart, but didn't act it. In other words, her dear brother knew nothing at all about life.

Tracy, on the other hand, was a veritable warehouse of information about people, what they wanted, what they were willing to give, and how to get them to give it to her. That boy over there on the other end of the pier, for instance, had a transistor radio. It caught the local rock and roll station and produced absolutely fantastic sound.

Tracy wanted that radio. And it was very apparent to her, after a few minutes of observation, that the boy was staring at her. A little smile, a crooked finger, an innocent request for help with rubbing the tanning oil on her back, and Tracy had managed to snag use of that transistor for the rest of the afternoon.

Not that the boy was going to get any farther with her. No, vacations boys, even those with kick-ass radios, were not part of Tracy Quartermaine's Master Plan. She cranked up the radio as she lay back on her towel. Elvis had a new song out. It was okay, but not as good as his early stuff.

She could feel the eyes on her as she lay there. It was good to be aware of how people saw you. And she knew most people thought she was awful. But most of the boys on the pier were not noticing her personality. Tracy smiled to herself. She was athletic, fit, and although she was woefully underdeveloped in the chest area, filled out a bathing suit quite nicely. It didn't hurt that she'd accidentally on purpose brought last year's suit, which was just a little too small, which pushed her in at all the right places and pushed her out at all the better places.

Daddy had been furious and forbid her to go swimming at all during their vacation.

Of course, he hadn't said anything at all about sunbathing.

The British group that replaced Elvis was young and hot and sexy. Tracy let the exciting beats surround her as she indulged in her favorite past-time. She looked ahead in her mind, to sixteen, to eighteen, to twenty-one. Tracy had her entire life planned out right down to the minute, and she loved to review and refine her plans as her needs and desires matured.

She'd graduate college early, of course, at 21. She hadn't decided on whether or not to get a master's degree. She'd need to be educated to run ELQ, but she didn't want to appear overeducated.

She'd have a penthouse in Manhattan, Park Avenue, of course, where she'd entertain her copious lovers in lavish style after a day of earning millions for the family. Mother and Daddy would visit on weekends, often, and she'd throw fabulous dinner parties for them. Everybody would attend--the elite of Broadway, politicians, artists, intellectuals, and of course the most successful businessmen on Wall Street.

She'd settle down at 25 or 26, find a nice man from a good family (older preferably, the man and his money). Her husband would understand from the getgo that her career came first. They'd have two children by her 30th birthday, a boy and a girl, who'd _both_ be groomed to work at ELQ. If the man didn't have his own business, she'd set him up with a Vice-Presidency at the company. There was no way Tracy Quartermaine was going to put up with an idle husband, no matter how fabulously wealthy and sexy and smart he was. She pictured Tony Curtis, or maybe Gary Cooper, in the role of her husband. Handsome enough, but not prettier than she was.

She herself would be a force of nature. Admired, feared, and respected as a business leader. She would move ELQ up the Fortune 500, leaving little piddling companies like PepsiCo and Ma Bell in the dust as she did. Daddy would retire early, secure in the fact that his legacy was in good hands, and take Mother on wonderful vacations, all around the world.

"Earth to Princess Tracy."

There was a shadow falling over her. Tracy put her hand over her eyes, squinting up to see her older brother standing just in her way. "You're blocking my sunlight, goofball."

"Dad will kill you if he finds out you're out here in that suit." Alan nudged her waist with his big toe, and she slapped his foot in response.

"_Daddy_, for your information, had to drive into Manhattan for an emergency meeting. If you would ever actually pay attention, you'd know these things."

Alan dropped into a seating position next to her, his legs crossing easily beneath his lanky frame. "Yeah, well if you think he doesn't have people spying on you, you're nuts."

"Paranoid."

"Delusional." He grabbed the radio. "Where'd you get this?"

"It's a loaner," she said, turning towards the radio's owner and flashing him a smile and a little wave. The boy sat up to wave back, knocking over his bottle of strawberry Ne-Hi as he did. Tracy laughed airily. "He was very sweet to loan it to me, wasn't he?"

Alan frowned, handing her the radio as he stared bullets at the boy. "You'd better watch yourself, Kid Sister."

Tracy took the radio from him with a groan. For someone who hated her guts, Alan could sure be overprotective at times. "I know what I'm doing."

"You don't know anything," he said, grabbing a towel from the bag Tracy had brought with her and spreading it out next to her.

"Are you planning on staying there," Tracy asked incredulously. "Lemme guess, you struck out with Marilyn Monroe."

"She has a boyfriend in Schenectedy."

"I thought it was Albany."

"Does it matter?" Alan asked glumly. He reached into the little ice chest they shared and pulled out a Pepsi. "Want one?"

Tracy shook her head. "Too much sugar." As an afterthought, she added, "Sorry about Marilyn."

"It's okay. It's not like we could have made it work anyway. Not with me going off to school this fall."

Tracy drew in a deep breath, pulling the bottle from his hand to steal a sip. At his glare, she explained, "Just a sip. To wet my throat."

"Uh-huh."

"Have you told him yet?" Tracy laughed, a little cruel sound. "Oh, of course you haven't. The world hasn't exploded."

Alan shot her a nasty look, then sank back to lay looking upwards, his arms crossed over his face. He wasn't a bad looking guy at 17, Tracy noticed. For a big brother, he was okay. It was just this stupid ambition of his, oh and the fact that they fought like cats and dogs, that made him unbearable to her most of the time.

"You gotta tell him sooner or later, Alan," she said, placing his soda on the pier next to him, much lighter than when she'd taken it. "He's going to find out when they ask for tuition."

"It's got to be done right," her brother said, his voice muffled through the flesh of his arm. "I have to figure out the best approach."

"Uh, how about--Dad, I'm about to throw away all your dreams and hopes for me by going into medicine instead of business. You know that great business school I got accepted to? Well, it's not the only one I applied to, and this is the college I'm attending." Tracy mimed the act of handing him a brochure. "You'll note it has no business school to speak of, but wow! What a pre-med progam!" She laughed at his groan. "Can't wait to see what happens when you counter his threats not to pay with that full academic scholarship you won."

"I'm a dead man."

"Don't flatter yourself," she said, relaxing back onto her blanket. "You won't live long enough to be any sort of a man."

"You are altogether too happy about this."

"Why shouldn't I be?" she asked. "With you safely disinherited, there's nobody left but me to take over the reigns at ELQ."

Alan laughed now, an echo of the cruel sound she'd made earlier. "When pigs fly. I hate to break it to you, but Dad's never going to let a girl take over his company."

"That's bullshit."

"You'd better not let Mother hear you talking like that," her brother warned.

"Nobody is better suited to take over Daddy's company than me," she insisted. She'd never really discussed her plans with anybody before, and Alan's mocking tone infuriated her. "I'm smart, good in math, and I've been eavesdropping on his business conversations since I was six. I read his _Wall Street Journal_ every day when he's done, cover to cover, even the stock quotes. I know who all the players are, and I know exactly where Daddy wants to take the company." She could feel her blood pounding in her veins, a fury inside of her that only grew when she turned to see the look of pity in her brother's face.

"Looks like Daddy's dreams are a bust…" he said. "He built this company to pass down to his son, not his trouble-maker daughter."

Tracy bit her lip, mainly to stop the tears that were forming behind her eyelids. They were tears of fury, no doubt, but tears were tears and she had no intention of letting her asshole brother see them. "You'll see," she seethed, sitting up and gathering her things quickly. It didn't matter any more that the boys were staring. They were idiot vacation boys who didn't know their asses from a hole in the ground. It didn't matter that her tan was nearly perfect. She didn't care how she looked.

"Hey, Trace, I'm sorry, but it's the truth. Dad's pretty adamant about his plans, and you know he doesn't like to be disappointed."

"Shut up," she said. Her foot hit the radio, toppling it onto its side. She didn't feel like returning it to its owner just now, so she picked it up and tossed it to Alan. "Make yourself useful and give this to Romeo over there. Tell him I'm fourteen and if he bothers me again, you'll have him arrested."

"Tracy, come on," Alan was following her now down the pier. "Look, it's just the way things are. It's nothing against you."

"I can't _wait_ until Daddy disinherits you," she spat at him. "I've always wanted to be an only child."

Alan sighed, rolling his eyes. "You can be such a spoiled brat!"

"And you can be a complete jerk!" She tossed her bag at him, and ran all the way back to the cabin. Her mother was inside, on the phone making their dinner reservations. Tracy ran through the cabin into the room that she'd claimed for the western view and the big four-poster bed. She tossed herself on the bed, and started screaming into the pillow. It wasn't a loud scream, just enough to get it out of her system. Just enough to ease the pressure in her head, to let go of some of the rage that threatened to consume her more often than not.

He was wrong. Once he saw how unfit Alan was for the job, Daddy _had_ to accept her as his successor at ELQ. It was all she wanted. The college, the penthouse, the kids and gorgeous husband, the fabulous parties and friends--these were nothing without ELQ. Nothing without the knowledge that she was going to keep Daddy's legacy alive, that she was going to be the one he loved and admired and appreciated when he retired.

There was a knock on her door. Tracy took a deep breath, calming herself. It wouldn't do to let Mother see her cry. Maybe she could tell her, maybe she knew the truth. Tracy thought for a moment she would ask, once and for all, knowing that her mother would never lie to her.

Does Daddy love me, even if I'm a daughter and not a son?

Will Daddy let me do what I'm supposed to do with my life?

Will Daddy ever accept me for who I am?

"Tracy," her mother said as she knocked on the door. "I need to speak with you."

"Come in," Tracy murmured. "I need to talk to you, too." She was going to do it. She was going to get the truth. She was going to find out, once and for all, whether Daddy didn't love her, just because she wasn't his son.

Lila walked into the room, her blonde hair swept up in an elegant curve atop her head. She was stunningly beautiful, Tracy thought, and just as sweet-tempered and kind-hearted as could be. "Tracy, I motioned for you to stop, but you flew through here so fast--"

"I'm sorry, Mother," Tracy whispered, sitting up on the bed, her confidence faltering. Maybe she wouldn't ask…

"I'm thinking of asking the Harrisons to join us for dinner, but that would mean we have to have an earlier reservation. I know you don't get along well with their daughter, so before I make special arrangements, I want your assurances that you will behave, and not taunt her the way you did last time."

Tracy's heart fell. Of all the times for her mother to bring up her bratty behavior. Didn't she know her daughter's entire future hung in the balance? Didn't she know that, before this vacation was over, everything would change?

Of course she didn't. Mother knew a lot, but about some things, she was perfectly clueless. "I'll be good, Mommy," she said softly. "I promise."

"Thank you, darling. Now, did you need to ask me something?"

Tracy looked into her mother's eyes, wanting so badly to trust her. Wanting so badly to tell her about her plans. But there was a flash in her mind, an image of Lila's face, saddened, worried, the sound of her words, her sweetly accented voice telling Tracy it could never happen. That her father loved her, _in his own way_, which was code she knew for _not at all_, but he had his plans, and well, you know how hard it is to change your father's mind once he's got it set on something….

She faltered, chickened out. "Uh, no, Mommy," she said. "It was nothing at all."

Lila smiled, chucking her on the cheek. "You've been a very good girl this vacation, Tracy," she said, looking down at the suit her daughter wore. "Although you'd probably better not let him catch you going out in that swimsuit."

Tracy sighed, nodding. "I'll change." And Tracy knew as she said it that she didn't mean her suit. She'd change herself. She'd do whatever it took to make her Daddy have faith in her. She'd get where she wanted to be, no matter what the cost. She had to. "I love you, Mother."

"I love you, too," Lila said, and for the first time in her life, Tracy wished she hadn't.

She wasn't the parent Tracy wanted to hear saying those words. "I'd better get changed," she said, and ushered her mother out of the room. She had a lot of thinking to do if she was going to revise her Master Plan.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	8. 006 Hot

**Title:** Chili Diablo  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #6 Hot  
**Word Count:** 968 words  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Luke tries to drum up business for the _Haunted Star_.  
**Author's Notes:** Set June 2006-ish, in that happy little AU where Luke and Tracy actually have something to do on the show. Pure fluff, and an attempt at humor.

Her lips were aching from it. Tracy blew out a bit of heat with her breath, wondering how she'd ever let him talk her into this. "You're insane."

"I'm a genius," Luke Spencer insisted as he dipped the ladle into the pot. "Try it now."

"I'm not eating another bite of that toxic waste," she said, turning away from him as he offered her another taste of his so-called _Chili Diablo_.

"Toxic, my great Aunt Fanny. There's pure serrano chile gold in here, lady, and you're lucky enough to be in on the ground floor."

"_Nobody_ is going to eat this stuff, Luke. I don't know why you insist on making it." She leaned against the cabinet of the _Haunted Star_'s tiny kitchen, still surprised at why he'd invited her here. It wasn't like he liked her, or wanted to spend time with her. "And you'll probably be sued for poisoning your customers, which means _I'll_ be sued, because as we both know, this place is mine until you pay me back every cent you stole from me."

Luke shot her a dark glare, and continued with his chili. "Listen, Spanky, my infamous Buckaroo Night has never failed to rake in the dough. It's a theme night, just for fun. And there is no Buckaroo Night without Cowboy Luke's Famous Chili Diablo."

Tracy stared at him, uncomprehending. "Do you actually _listen_ to half the things that come out of your mouth?"

He raised a single eyebrow, then tried a different tack. "Okay, I shouldn't have just sprung it on you. Here…" He moved around her, his body pressing against hers in the tight quarters as he went for the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. "Drink this."

She stared at it as if it were a snake. "You _are_ joking, right?"

"Beer and peppers go together, Wife. Now, if you want your precious money, work with me on a money-maker. Take a sip of the beer." His tone brooked no argument, and to both their surprise, Tracy complied. She twisted the cap off and, not seeing a convenient glass handy, proceeded to take a long slug straight from the bottle. "Good stuff, huh?" Luke prompted as Tracy twisted her face in disgust.

"Yeah, pure ambrosia," she croaked.

"Now, taste." He took a spoon and dipped it into the pot, carefully offering it to his wife. She opened her mouth, gingerly accepting the spoon and eating just the smallest portion of chili she could manage. "Well?"

Tracy's eyes closed, her face contorting with the heat of it. Then something miraculous happened. Her eyes opened wide, and a look of utter amazement spread across her face. "Oh, my god!" she exclaimed. "Give me that." She grabbed the bottle of beer and downed another swig. "More." She reached out for the spoonful of chili he offered, her eyes watering, but a look of sheer euphoria on her face as she swallowed. "That is incredible!"

Luke nodded, happy as if he had sense. "I told you."

Tracy shook her head, blowing out hard as the heat had its way with her mouth. "Whoa! That is serious, but I think you're right. I think it'll sell."

"Sell, my butt. Spanky, they'll be lining up for miles to get a taste of this. And quenching that fire with the finest expensive booze we got."

"What if they don't drink?" She was puckering now, her lips still burning with the heat of the peppers.

"Tea-totaling lips shall never touch my Chili Diablo," Luke said in mock offense. "Besides, the hotter the chili, the more they drink. The more they drink, the more they gamble. And the more they gamble, my pretty pink habanera…"

"The more money I make," Tracy finished for him, with special emphasis on the word "I." She was still shaking her head from the heat, but she refused his offer of another sip of beer. "I hate beer."

"Well, there is another way to fight the heat," he said, inching a bit closer to her.

"Water?"

"Hell, no." Luke shook his head fiercely. "Spreads the capsicum around. Water'll only make it worse."

"Oh, my god," she said. "My lips are on fire."

Luke leaned in, pressing his mouth firmly on hers, pulling her into a very different form of heat altogether. "Another wonderful side effect of the chiles, Wife," he murmured against her lips. "It's an aphrodisiac." He kissed her again, slowly this time, pressing forward until her back was against the counter, their bodies flush against each other, temperatures rising by the second.

It was definitely a different kind of heat, and for a moment, he thought Tracy would go for it. They had had their differences, but underneath it all, Luke knew he had a certain chemistry with his wife that required a more physical appreciation. Maybe here, on the _Haunted Star_, away from the pressures of her family, he might convince her to—

He gasped as a stream of ice cold beer poured over his head. Tracy had reached behind them, effectively ending his pursuit by dousing him with the rest of the beer. He sputtered, shaking his short spiky hair like a wet dog. "Why the hell did you do that?"

She smiled at him with that infuriating, smug grin she reserved for times when she _really_ wanted to piss him off. "It worked," she said sweetly, downing the last sip of beer straight from the bottle. "My lips aren't burning anymore."

Luke glowered, and reached into the pot to pull out a ladle full of chili. "Another bite, Precious?"

"Save it for the paying customers." She leaned forward, kissed him sweetly on the lips, then left him to his own devices, knowing that no matter what, she was never gonna eat another bite of that stuff again.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	9. 007 Friend

**Title:** Common Ground  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #7 Friend  
**Word Count:** 1,532 words  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** On a very difficult day, Monica finds support in an expected place.  
**Author's Notes:** I always thought there was potential for some sort of friendship between Tracy and Monica, despite their past.

"I'm sorry," she said, pulling her knees into her chest. Monica looked small, fragile and lost in her pain as she huddled on the couch in the Quartermaine living room. "I just—"

Tracy sat next to her, an unnatural wave of sympathy washing over her. Maybe it was just that she'd been in a good mood to start, or maybe something about the expression her sister-in-law wore struck a nerve with her. "I hated that vase anyway," she said, handing the drink she'd made for herself to Monica.

Monica hesitated, then took the martini and downed it. "I am furious with your brother," she said plainly.

"Well, when isn't i _someone_ /i furious with my brother?" Tracy paused, turning again to study the shards of porcelain on the floor. It was the crash that had brought her running; thank god it wasn't one of Mother's vases Monica had smashed, or this would have been a very different conversation they were having. As it was, she was the only person here, and the only person who could figure out why the normally staid and calm Dr. Quartermaine was hurling expensive vases around like they were water balloons. "What did he do this time?"

Monica tilted her head backward, her dark blonde hair brushing against her upper back as she did, and bit her lower lip. "It's not what he did, Tracy. It's what he didn't do."

"What didn't he do? Take out the trash? Pay the club membership? i _You /i _?" The last was intended as a joke, but it went straight over Monica's head. Tracy wasn't really interested in Alan and Monica's marital troubles, but family obligation did suggest she should keep Monica from destroying any more Quartermaine property. "What's going on?"

"He's out of town. For the entire day."

Okaaayy. Tracy thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "Nope, can't figure out why that's got you smashing antique vases. You're gonna have to give me more to work with."

Monica steepled her hands in front of her. She was still pretty enough, Tracy noticed, although her glory days as a blonde beauty were far behind her—well, all their glory days were far behind them, if the truth were told. Still, if a woman had to age, it didn't hurt to age as gracefully as Monica had. Her features were still good, despite the lines time and pain had put on her face. There were laugh lines too, though, and Tracy felt a stab of jealousy for the happiness she knew her sister-in-law had experienced.

"Monica, we don't have all day to sit here staring at each other." She sighed heavily, wondering why she was even bothering, except of course to protect the family assets from Monica's sudden and incongrous destructive rage. "Alan goes out of town all the time. Why should today be any different?"

"He was out of town on this day last year, too," Monica murmured, staring straight ahead. "He'll be out of town next year, on the same day, I'm sure. Probably every year, for the rest of our lives."

There was such a sudden and intense sadness in her voice that it gave Tracy pause. They'd had their issues, of course, and had absolutely hated each other for most of their time as sisters-in-law. But their relationship had mellowed into a kind of armed truce in the past few years, and she i _had_ /i been feeling generous to start with… "What's so special about today?" she asked. Her tone was gentler when it came out than she normally used with Monica.

"It's A.J.'s birthday," Monica said plainly.

"Oh, dear god…"

"I reminded Alan about it last week. I reminded him this weekend." Monica took in a deep breath, steeling herself. "Last night, he got a call that he had to go to Albany today to deal with the state board of hospitals." She frowned. "How convenient."

"You know, it's possible…" But Tracy knew it wasn't. The Quartermaines were not big on dealing with painful emotions, especially the Quartermaine men. Alan and A.J.'s relationship had always been rocky, but the death of his eldest son had torpedoed her older brother, sending him into a downward spiral she'd feared he would never escape.

"He doesn't want to remember," Monica said sullenly. "I go to A.J.'s grave every birthday, every holiday…sometimes, even when there's no occasion at all…just to let him know somebody loved him…" She began to cry softly, and buried her face in her hands.

"Alan i _loved_ /I his son," Tracy insisted. The irony of the statement was not lost on her, considering how far she'd gone to prove that A.J. wasn't Alan's son at all. "He loved him deeply. He's just…he's not…" She hesitated, not knowing how to proceed. Her chances were pretty even that she would either comfort or infuriate Monica with her attempts at kindness, and for some reason Tracy didn't want to cause her sister any more pain than she was already in. "Alan loved him," she said plainly, as if that was enough, even though they both knew it wasn't.

"Then why—"

"Because he's Alan. Because he's a Quartermaine." She stopped Monica's protests with a single raised hand. "We're emotionally dysfunctional, the whole lot of us. We're horrible to each other, hateful and brutal and cruel. But underneath it, we love—fiercely and without hesitation. A.J. was a Quartermaine. Alan loved him. But Alan is Alan, and you knew that when you married him. All twelve times." She grinned just a little with the last comment, and was gratified to see Monica smile ruefully in return. Pushing her advantage, she said, "You know, you didn't have to keep remarrying him, if he was so obnoxious."

"Yes, I did," was the soft response, and again it hit Tracy how jealous she was, on one level, of this woman. How much she'd give for a love like that. "But you're right. I should know by now that I'm not going to change him. He'll deal with A.J.'s death the way he deals with it, and I'll do it my way."

"I don't know…" Tracy stopped, suddenly realizing where she was going with the statement, and not wanting to continue.

"You don't know what?" Monica asked, wiping the tears from her cheek with the back of her right hand.

"Um…"

"Come on, Tracy. We don't have all day to sit here staring at each other." But her tone was gentle and teasing, and Tracy felt another surge of compassion for this woman who'd been her nemesis for so many years.

"I don't know how I'd survive if…if one of my boys…" She couldn't continue. It was so selfish, and so feeble, to even consider such things in light of Monica's loss. She had her sons, loath as they were to spend any time with her, alive and healthy and a phone call away at any moment. She felt the brush of what that loss would do to her, just sitting next to Monica, and she knew it would kill her outright if anything were to happen to Ned or Dillon.

"You'd survive, because it's all you can do."

"I don't know if I would be strong enough…I don't know how you can be so strong," she added in a barely audible whisper.

"I do what I have to do. For myself, for my family…it's what mothers do, Tracy." She smiled sadly at her sister-in-law, and for the first time Tracy realized that they were connected. Maybe not happily, maybe not willingly, but Tracy and Monica were connected by more than a family name and more than a marriage license.

There was something about loss, and something about grief, that brought them together. She had lost her son; Tracy had lost Lila. Both of them had lost years in pursuit of stupid and selfish goals, diverted their energies, hurt the ones they loved the most.

Tracy bit her lower lip slightly, shutting her eyes hard and taking a deep breath before speaking. "I'll drive you to the cemetary," she said quickly. "A.J. and I couldn't stand each other, but we respected each other. And in the Quartermaine family, that's enough."

Monica's eyes were still glistening with tears, but there was also a gratitude there. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Of course I don't want to do that," Tracy responded, but she kept her voice as gentle as possible. "But you're family. A.J. was family. And I won't let you do this alone."

"Thank you," Monica whispered. She stood, sighing. "I'll leave a note for Alice to clean up that mess when she gets back from the market. Can we go now? I don't want to put this off any later than I have to."

Tracy nodded, avoiding the pile of porcelain rubble as she did. "I'll get my bag."

As they were heading out the door, Monica said, "Thank you, again. You don't have to do this."

"Don't get sentimental."

"I'm not getting sentimental," Monica said as they cleared the living room door. "Maybe we can have lunch afterwards?"

"Don't push it…" was the only thing Tracy said as they headed out the door.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	10. 008 Floor

**Title: **What the Camera Sees  
**Fandom: **General Hospital  
**Characters: **Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#8 Floor  
**Word Count: **1,203 words  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Summary: **Tracy Williams prepares for a charity function…without her husband.  
**Author's Notes: **Set during the Mitch Williams years (c. 1981). Before she's been banished, but not by much.

The glow from the lighted mirror set Tracy Williams off to her best advantage. She'd insisted on this particular vanity set when she and Mitch bought the penthouse, and she'd never regretted putting her foot down.

Mitch had political aspirations, and a political wife needed to be aware of her appearances. She assessed her make-up in the oval-shaped mirror. It was just prominent enough for any lighting situation, but not too overly done. Her hair was still up in curlers—those odd, squiggly things they advertised on television. Tracy never would have bought them for herself, but her mother was a sucker for all things new and clever. She had to admit, they worked quite well, regardless of how ridiculous she looked in them.

She pulled out her eyeliner, carefully tracing the dark liquid just below her lashes. She'd watched her mother do this, back when Elizabeth Taylor was smashing through the screen as _Cleopatra_. She'd learned from her mother how to apply make-up, how to spray her perfume _above_ her, rather than on her, how to dress appropriately for every occasion.

She'd learned from her mother and had hoped that someday her own daughter would learn these things from her.

Tracy closed her eyes for a moment, not wanting to think about such things. There were no daughters in her future, she knew. Not being the maternal type, this shouldn't bother her as much as it did. But something about knowing that she'd never have Mitch's children, that she'd never…

She slammed down the tube of liner, sending her cosmetics bouncing in all directions. Tracy drew in a long breath, trying to calm herself, staring into the mirror with hard, scrutinizing eyes.

What would the camera see tonight?

Would it see a typical political wife, a pretty face attached to a powerful man?

Would it see her as his patsy, the rich debutante bankrolling an ambitious man's rise to the top?

Or would the camera look beneath the perfectly manicured mask? Would it see the cuckolded wife, the woman who'd begged her own husband to make love to her on their wedding night, the burden he carried in the name of having the right connections?

Would the camera see what she saw? The disgust in his eyes? The desire to escape, to go to his mistress, to go to that damned apartment he kept for their liaisons?

Tracy shook herself out of it. She was in too deep now. She reached out, pulling a strand of pearls from her jewelry box. She had to keep it together. She had to be strong, if not for herself, if not for her damned husband, then for her family.

The pearls looked good against her throat. They'd been a gift from Lila, on her wedding day—to Larry Ashton. They were beautiful—simple and elegant, just like Lila was, just like she wanted to be. They marked her as a Quartermaine, as something more than average. She pressed her hand against them, feeling their coolness against her skin. As long as she had these pearls, as long as the connection remained unbroken, she knew she could sustain. No matter what.

She couldn't go to them and tell them she'd failed again. She couldn't go to them and tell them another man didn't love her anymore, might never have loved her at all.

Tracy began to pull the curlers out of her hair, piling them in a big pink mess on the vanity. Her hair was long, rich brown locks that offset her face and enhanced her coloring. She watched as the curls fell in ringlets, framing her stark features, wild and just a little bit sexy.

She wanted to keep it that way.

She wanted to put her make-up on too thick, red lipstick instead of coral, Cleopatra eyes and come-hither lips.

She wanted to give Mitch a taste of his own medicine. She could do it, she knew. She could go down to that damned disco he owned on campus, a hot dress and wild hair. College boys loved older, married woman…rich, neglected, experienced women who wanted as few strings as possible for their money.

There was that fellow he'd hired to run the place, Somebody Spencer, with the odd hair and intense eyes. He looked seedy enough—the fact that he was sleeping with the boss's wife would probably thrill him. Tracy knew she could seduce him, knew she could make him want her. She could imagine it, the back room of the disco, the music and lights just out of reach, the blood pulsing in her vein from the very decadence of the act. She wondered if sex felt better when it was illicit, wondered if orgasms were more powerful if experienced when breaking one of the Ten Commandments?

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not ruin thy brother's life. Thou shalt not steal, or manipulate, or push people's buttons. Thou shalt not be a bitch to thy family.

How is it that, with all the sins she'd committed in her life, adultery was the one she could never manage? How much had she learned watching her mother at the mirror?

Never be unfaithful, no matter how much he strays.

She stared at herself, hating what the mirror showed her. A thirty year old woman with a growing son and two failed marriages.

This was not what she'd planned for herself. The dreams she'd woven, the goals she had—they didn't include feeling like this, fantasing about a sordid affair with a man she'd never give the time of day under normal circumstances.

She shook her hair, watching the ringlets play in the light. She could seduce a man if she tried. She could shock the camera, shock her family, shock the world if she put her mind to it.

But the camera didn't want Tracy wild. The camera wanted a more wholesome, polished look. The camera wanted her to behave, wanted to believe the illusion she and Mitch created. The perfect political couple.

She pulled the brush through her hair. Maybe one day, she'd find it within herself to go out on that limb. Maybe one day it wouldn't matter what people thought of her.

But today wasn't that day. Because before she was a political wife, before she was Mrs. Mitch Williams, before all these masks that she'd chosen for herself were set into place, she was a Quartermaine.

And Quartermaines survived.

She was just about done when the bristles of the brush snagged on the clasp of her pearls, sending the tiny opalescent droplets flying everywhere. Tracy cried out, pushing the chair backwards and crawling down onto the floor.

The pearls were everywhere, bouncing across the tiles, under the vanity, towards the tub, even out into the bedroom.

The necklace was ruined.

She shuddered, deep within her, and had to take a deep calming breath. It wasn't an omen. It wasn't a sign. It was just a stupid broken clasp.

She stood, staring defiantly at the proper, well-groomed woman who looked back at her. Grabbing another necklace, any old thing, she put it around her neck.

It was not a sign.

She was a Quartermaine, and Quartermaines survived.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	11. 009 Cheat

**Title: **The Art of Negotiation  
**Fandom: **General Hospital  
**Characters: **Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#9 Cheat  
**Word Count: **4,662 words  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Summary: **What 17 year old Tracy Quartermaine wants more than anything is an internship at ELQ. What Edward makes her do to earn it…  
**Author's Notes: **Past!fic. Tracy is home on summer break from boarding school

It didn't start out as an argument, really. She'd tried to play it cool and just mentioned the internship to him, how much she'd like to try for it, how much she wanted to learn about the business. It would be a great opportunity for her—to learn about ELQ, to learn about business, to have the best summer ever.

It didn't seem to be such an unreasonable request, considering Alan had just qualified for medical school and didn't look like he was reconsidering his decision to skip a career in business for medicine. And even if she wasn't the first-born, male, and Heir Apparent to the Quartermaine Legacy, Tracy was still a Quartermaine, and it made sense to have Quartermaine in the family business.

That's what she told her father, and what she argued with him about, first over dinner that night, until Lila became so upset she forbid them to discuss it anymore, and then in his office the next morning.

"It's the chance of a lifetime, Daddy," she said, resting her slim posterior against his desk as she gestured broadly with her hands. "A chance to get real-world business experience, in one of the finest companies—"

"I am not going to play favorites with you, Tracy," her father argued, taking a piece of paper out of his desk and scribbling something on it. He'd tried to continue working with her intrusion, but Tracy was making it difficult for him to concentrate.

"You pulled more strings than a puppeteer to get Alan his internship when he was in high school, and he didn't even want it!"

"Alan was different. Times were different," he added.

"I know what's different, Daddy," she glared at him, leaning forward to emphasize her chest. "And that's sexual discrimination. It's illegal, too."

"It's not illegal for a man to choose not to force his unruly daughter on an unsuspecting company for an entire summer!"

Tracy stood, rolling her eyes and sighing heavily. "I'm not unruly; I'm passionate. About finance, about business, about this company. I was i _born_ /i to do this work, Daddy, and all I want is a chance to prove to you what I can do. All I want is time, just this summer, so I can show you that I'm the right person to take over ELQ when you retire."

Edward narrowed his eyes slightly, his heavy brows bending and flexing as if on their own volition as he contemplated Tracy's words. "All right, daughter," he said in a firm, low voice. "If it's a chance to prove yourself you want, that is exactly what you'll have." He stood, pushing his chair away from the huge mahogony desk and gesturing for her to follow him towards a small storage room connected to his office . He opened the door and motioned for her to enter. "In here, you will find the financial records for all of our plants from the last quarter. I will allow you free access to this room for three days, provided you don't interfere whatsoever with my business. In that time, you will create a complete financial forecast, using the standard ELQ template, for all plants over the next fiscal quarter. If you can do that, to my satisfaction, in three days time, I will move heaven and earth to get you that internship."

Tracy stifled an emotional response, as much in reaction to the opportunity as in reaction to the daunting task set before her. The room was filled with boxes and boxes of files—weeks worth of work. Part of her resisted, screaming silently at the unfairness of it all. Alan hadn't had to jump through hoops of fire to get his internship. Alan hadn't had to prove anything at all, especially by killing himself to do something that it would have taken a normal worker ages to do.

But another part of her, the Quartermaine part, gloried in the challenge. She knew Daddy's business—she'd been studying it religiously since she was a child. She read his annual and quarterly reports like gospel, and knew what needed to be done. This was a challenge she could meet, and this was a goal she could accomplish, no matter how much Daddy thought she'd falter.

She turned to her father, glowing with the youthful radiance of confidence. "Deal's on, Daddy," she said, pushing past him to get to the office. "I'll need supplies, and a place to work, and…"

"I'll have Mary set you up in one of our smaller conference rooms," he said. There was a chuckle in his voice.

Tracy grinned at him, eyes wide and defiant. "You do that, Daddy. We'll talk about a real desk once I have my internship." And she was off, ready to prove herself, once and for all.

Two and a half days later, bleary eyed and exhausted, Tracy was no longer so confident. She worked harder here than she'd ever worked in her life, going through ledgers and receipts and piles and piles of adding machine tape to check her figures. The main plant looked good for the next quarter; in fact, all the factories and plants looked good except for the cannery, which was showing a consistent, if minimal loss. She couldn't make sense of it, and she was sure there was a simple reason that she was overlooking. Without knowing i _why_ /i the cannery was losing money, it was hard to know how to forecast for it. She'd done the best she could with what she had, but it still nagged at her. She didn't want to turn in the report with mistakes, but she didn't want to miss her deadline either. Tracy thought back to her business classes at school, to everything she'd learned, all the different examples they'd studied, and still it didn't make sense.

Otherwise, the report looked good. She had finished in amazing time, quicker than even she could have predicted. She refused to have one of the secretaries type it up—Tracy had set herself up in an empty workspace and had plugged through on her own, squeezing the type between the preprinted table lines, redoing when she made typos, proofing and correcting like there was no tomorrow.

If only she could figure out that damned cannery, she'd be home free, internship in hand.

Blowing out a breath of warm air, Tracy pushed herself away from the conference table, grabbing her precious report, and headed to the break room for a well-deserved cup of coffee. Her mother frowned on too much consumption in young people, but here at ELQ, she was just another young worker grabbing a cup of joe. The thought of it made Tracy smile, even as she rounded the corner to the break room. Her smile vanished, though, when she caught sight of her father and his secretary Mary, all cozy and smiling as they leaned together against the wall outside the break room.

It was very apparent what sort of fringe benefits this tart was expecting from her job.

A flurry of rage whipped through Tracy, and she found herself barrelling toward the pair, all toothy grin and mindless determination. "Daddy, there you are!" she said in a breathy voice, pushing the report into his hand, cannery problem be damned, as she insinuated herself between him and his secretary. "I think you'll be very happy with the work I've done, and you'll also note that I finished in i _less_ /i than the allotted time!"

Edward furrowed his brow, doing his best to regain his composure after his daughter's intrustion into his little afternoon i _conversation_ /i . "Well, let's hope you didn't rush the job, Tracy," he blustered, fanning through the pages of the bound report at a quick pace. "Although I'm sure you did your best."

"That's all I ever do, Daddy," she said in an overly-effervescent tone. With a pointed, albeit sweet smile at his secretary, she added, "Mother wants to know if you'll be home for dinner tonight."

Edward at least had the decency to look chagrined, and he was indeed home for dinner that night. Lila commented on how lovely it was to have the whole family around the table for supper, and nothing at all was said about Tracy's report.

For the next two days, she waited more or less patiently for his response on her work. She tried not to bug him, knowing that her father did not like to be pushed. But it was two days now, and she was getting crazy. She grabbed her big canvas bag, the one she'd used to carry books between classes school, and made her way down to the ELQ office. She'd brought several personal items, one of her textbooks and her electric calculator, to help with her project and had left them there in her hasty departure. It was as good enough an excuse to stop by, and maybe Daddy had an answer for her.

She rode up the elevators with half a dozen men, all in nice suits and ties. She loved the sight of a man in a suit—it was just one of those things that spelled class and success to Tracy. When she worked here, she would find a way to get tailored clothes, maybe something Chanel-like, to give the impression that she too understood the corporate world.

She ran into Chester, the mail room boy, as she exited on Daddy's floor. He smiled at her, a wide, slightly gummy smile in a pale freckled face. Chester had been a life-saver during her time there, and even though she'd never socialize with him, she liked him as a fellow ELQ employee. "How's tricks, Miss Q?" he said. He wore loafers and a short-sleeved shirt, and Tracy almost cringed at his unprofessionalism. Still, he was cute enough and really helpful, for someone who really didn't have any serious ambition.

"Just coming to pick up some things I left in the conference room the other day," she said breezily.

"Oh, that book and the Japanese calculator? Nice calculator, by the way," he added with a low whistle. "I put them up in the cabinet in the storage room. Didn't want anybody walking off with 'em."

Tracy cast him an indulgent smile. "You are a darling, Chester. This company would fold in a heartbeat without you."

"Don't I know it," he laughed and walked with her toward the store room, still pushing his metallic cart full of mail and packages. He walked right past several stops, intent on chatting up Tracy before getting back to his rounds. "So, you aren't going to be working here anymore?"

"I hope to be," she said honestly. "I'm just waiting on news about the summer internship."

Chester paused, scratching his head through a particularly unruly lock of auburn hair. "They filled that internship already, Miss Q," he said, obviously surprised that the boss's daughter didn't know. "Harvard guy—a senior. He started on Tuesday."

Tracy stopped dead in her tracks. Tuesday would have been two days into her project. She felt her blood boiling, anger threatening to overtake her. Purposefully, she calmed herself, forcing herself not to jump to conclusions. Maybe Chester was wrong. "Are you sure it's the same internship?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yup. They made a big deal out of it, sent an office wide memo introducing him and everything. That's him right there." He pointed out a young man, handsome and blond in a three-piece suit, talking wth two older men. "Hey, didn't your brother have an internship here just a few years back?"

"Yeah," Tracy grunted, pushing away from Chester to head towards the man who had stolen her summer.

"I'll get those things for you and have them waiting at reception," Chester called out to her, but she didn't hear.

Tracy pushed her way between the three men. The two older men, recognizing her immediately, coughed politely and excused themselves, leaving Harvard Boy to fend for himself. "What is your name," she demanded without preamble.

"Uh, Frank Watson," he said, confused by this dark-haired tornado who was suddenly in his face.

"Frank Watson, of Harvard University," she said with a sneer. "Well, thank you, Frank Watson of Harvard University, for officially i _ruining /i _my life."

"Ruining your life? I don't even know you," he countered, looking around helplessly. "Is this some kind of joke? Hazing the new guy and all that?"

"That internship meant the world to me, you get it? I've been preparing for it all my life; I deserved it. And here you are, with your three-piece suit and your Harvard education and your—" She smacked his chest with the palms of her hands, not hard but enough to get his attention. "You've ruined my life."

"Look, Miss, I don't know what you're talking about. I applied for this internship six months ago, interviewed three times. I earned this job, and I need it." He was trying to be diplomatic, which was hard to do with the pretty young woman fuming and fussing right in his personal space.

"That doesn't make sense. My brother got his internship in just a few weeks." She could feel the steam easing. Her rage wasn't at this guy, and she knew it. That helped her to calm down a little, anyway.

"Then your brother must have some pretty powerful connections," Frank said, following suit and calming as well. "This is one of the hardest internships to get on the East coast." He gave her a compassionate look. "What's your name?"

"Tracy," she murmured glumly. "Tracy Quartermaine, although a fat lot of good that does me."

"Quartermaine as in ELQ Quartermaine?" He stared at her, a new and sudden respect showing on his face. "As in Edward Quartermaine?"

"His screw-up daughter, in the flesh," she completed the sentence for him. "Daddy must have pulled major strings to get Alan that internship."

"And somebody like me probably got a nice little letter in the mail telling him that his resume would be kept on file for six months."

She sighed, suddenly feeling very foolish. Her father was right. She didn't know anything about anything. "Look, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. It's just—" She lowered her eyes, feeling every bit the spoiled brat people accused her of being. "This meant so much to me. I've been dreaming of working here since I was six years old."

"There's still next summer," he offered hopefully. "Just submit your resume in January and take your chances with the rest of us."

"By next summer, my parents will have me married and pregnant by some idiot from a good family." She leaned against the wall, eyes closing. "I really wanted this job. I just wanted to work with my dad."

Frank nodded. "I know what you mean. Edward Quartermaine is a hell of a businessman. I'm pretty sure, if genetics works, you probably have a great future ahead of you, too."

"Ha."

"No, really. And there's a lot you can learn from your dad, even without working here." He paused, reaching down to grab his briefcase from the floor. He opened it up and pulled out a bound report. "Check this out. It was distributed this morning. Don't let the simplicity of it fool you--I have never seen a cleaner, more concise example of business reporting in my life. The man's a genius."

Tracy took the report from him and opened it up. Her eyes got wider as she flipped through the pages—it was her forecast! Every page, exactly to the letter, even the typo on page 16 she'd meant to go back and fix. Her father had just changed the cover sheet and passed it on as his own work!

She steeled herself. She grounded herself. She smiled prettily at Frank, who was staring curiously. "Ya mind if I hang on to this?" she asked sweetly.

"Uh, no, keep it. I can get another one."

With another smile—or was it the baring of teeth—Tracy turned on her heels and headed towards Daddy's office. His secretary tried to stop her at the door, a look of worried surprise on her face. "He's in a meeting for the rest of the afternoon."

"I'll wait," Tracy spat, pushing past the little hussy with all the arrogance she could muster. "And if you try to move me, I'll just let my mother know about you and your little coffee breaks with Daddy." One look in her eyes, and the secretary knew Tracy was not bluffing She backed down and allowed the young woman entrance to the CEO's office.

It was everything Tracy could do not to go on a destructive rampage. She wanted to smash things. She wanted to take his antique pen set and pour ink all over his leather chair. She wanted to take the coat rack and smash through the huge windows overlooking the city of Port Charles.

She paced and fumed, fumed and paced, until she couldn't stand it anymore. Her hand flew wild and knocked over the old picture he kept on his desk of him and Mother with President Eisenhower. It was enough to send several items scattering, including the brass kaleidescope he'd gotten from Mother several Christmases ago. The tube-shaped object rolled off the desk, heading toward the mahogany credenza on the wall just next to the storage closet. Tracy grimaced; even in her rage, she didn't want to be responsible for destroying that kaleidescope. It was one of Daddy's favorite things.

She got down on her knees, chasing the brass tube as it rolled into the recess under the credenza. There was just enough space here for her to nudge through, reaching to grab the kaleidescope as it rolled all the way to the other end.

It was then that she saw the light coming out from under the bottom of the credenza. She might not have noticed it at all had she not been down there in the first place. The credenza was pressed against the wall; there shouldn't have been any light at all. She stared at the thin line of light at the bottom of the paneling, and pushed slightly on the wooden panel in front of it.

It moved.

She pushed again, forward and then to the side. To her amazement, the panel was a false one and slid easily to the right to reveal a tiny cubbyhole that was obviously part of the store room, hidden off from the main area. There was a small box there, and Tracy pulled it out, her curiosity more powerful than her rage for the moment. She opened the box, which was no wider than the width of a file folder, and started leafing through the files it contained.

"This doesn't make any sense," she murmured to herself. They were the files for the cannery, the same as the ones she'd spent days pondering over. "Why would he—" A realization struck, and she stood to get the report from where she'd left it on Daddy's desk. She opened it up to the proper page, and started comparing the numbers.

They didn't match.

Tracy's eyes grew wide, and then she began to laugh as she started systematically removing the most damning pages from the real cannery files. "You son of a bitch! You've been cooking the books and pocketing the difference," she laughed, knowing that her Daddy was going to pay through the nose for this one.

When Edward Quartermaine returned to his office from his quarterly financial meeting, he was surprised to find Tracy in his chair, her long legs stretched out before her (in a skirt that was far too short for his liking), ankles crossed casually on the desk. She was playing with his kaleidescope, seemingly oblivious to his arrival.

"What in the name of god do you think you're doing, young lady?"

Tracy grinned, easing her feet off the desk and leaning forward to put the kaleidescope down. "Hi, Daddy," she said in a light, airy tone. "God isn't in today. I'm his replacement."

"Get out of my chair!" He rounded the desk in an attempt to pull her onto her feet, but she stopped him by waving a copy of that damned forecast in his face.

"Ah, ah, ahhhh…not so fast, Daddy. I think there's a little conversation you and I need to have about business."

Edward's eyes narrowed as he tried to swallow his chagrin. "I used the basic skeleton, yes, but there was quite a bit of work needed to bring it up to company standards."

Tracy tossed the report on the desk with a resounding thud. "It's my report, verbatim. You changed the cover sheet to show your name instead of mine." She snorted derisively. "You probably didn't even do i _that_ /I yourself. Probably had Good Time Mary out there type it between i _coffee breaks_ /i ."

"Now see here, young lady—"

"No, i _you_ /i see here, Daddy. You never had any intention of giving me that internship. You knew it had already been filled, and you knew that you weren't going to go on a limb to get me that job. You just put me through this to torment me, to give me an opportunity to fail. And when I didn't fail, when I managed to call your bluff and produce a report that has been described as 'genius' by some of your finer employees, i _you_ /i stole my work and presented it as your own. Is that basically what happened, Daddy?"

To his credit, Edward didn't deny it. "It's common business practice for upper management to farm out drudge work to lower ranked employees. It helps them learn the business, and frees management to deal with more pressing matters."

"Bullshit! You threw a pot of lentils into the ashes and hoped Cinderalla wouldn't get them out in time for the ball." Tracy was glowering at him now, the full force of her Quartermaine temper showing in her young face. "Well, I I _won_ /i that bet, Daddy. I did what you asked, and now you have to pay up."

"I i _can't_ /i give you that internship now, Tracy. It's already been filled, by a good and qualified young man." He harrumphed, adjusting his jacket as he spoke. "Besides, there's no way for you to prove that report is anything other than my work. I checked—you left no draft copies, and your notes have been…ah-hem…shredded." He smiled a wolfish grin. "You really shouldn't leave your work space so untidy, Miss Quartermaine."

"Very clever, Daddy." Tracy met his smile with an equally hard smile of her own. "I guess I can't prove you stole my report. But I i _can_ /i prove you've been doctoring the ledgers for the cannery for the past three quarters and pocketing the difference."

The look of utter shock on Edward's face told them both she'd scored a direct hit. "What are you babbling about, daughter," he spat out, flustered but trying to control it.

"For such a smart businessman, you sure can be dumb, Mr. Quartermaine." She swiveled in the chair, using the toe of one of her shoes to point out the recess below the credenza. "You'd think a man as smart as you wouldn't hide evidence of his criminal activities in his own office, where anyone could stumble across them…"

"You little—"

"And just to make sure these precious files didn't get i _accidentally_ /i shredded by your overzealous secretary, I took the liberty of copying the most…interesting ledger sheets. I put them in a big manilla envelope and addressed it to the Board of Directors." She smiled again, victorious. "If I don't stop my contact in the mail room in fifteen minutes, that package goes out."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Face it, Daddy. If even i _one_ /i of those files reaches the board, you're through as CEO. You really want to take that chance?"

"It would destroy your mother," Edward said, playing his one trump card.

If the threat concerned Tracy, she didn't let it show. "Then you'd better start negotiating."

"This is nonsense," Edward grumbled, picking up the receiver of the phone on his desk.

"Looking for this, Daddy?" Tracy asked, dangling the spiral cord that usually connected the headpiece to the base.

"I'll go down to that damned mail room myself," he bellowed.

"Do you know how many manilla envelopes leave that mail room every day, Daddy? How suspicious would it look for the CEO himself to go rummaging through stacks of envelopes like a madman, searching for an anonymous package to the Board? Don't you think certain people would be curious as to the contents of the envelope Edward Quartermaine was sooo desparate for the Board i _not_ /i to see?" Tracy leaned back in her father's leather chair, stretching her legs and crossing her ankles on the desk once more. "No, Daddy, I think it's time we discuss Chapter Five of my business text book. It's called…" She lowered her gaze at him, delighting in the power of it all. "The Art of Negotiation."

Edward drew in a deep breath, obviously out of options. "How much is this going to cost me?"

"Well, since the internship is no longer an option—I've met Harvard Boy, and unlike you, I don't quite have the stomach yet to destroy a life for my own personal whims—we'll just have to find some other form of compensation. Besides, I only wanted the job so that I could learn more about business, and well, Daddy, you've taught me i _so_ /i much in this last week…"

" i _How much is this going to cost me, Tracy_ /i ?"

She gave him her most feral smile. "Let's talk…transportation."

The white leather interior of her new Mustang convertible shone in the moonlight as Tracy leaned back to admire the splendor around her. From her vantage point, she could see all of Port Charles below her and, if she squinted, the lights of Manhattan far in the distance. It was perfect, she thought. Just perfect. The car, the night, everything.

A little voice in her head suggested maybe she could ask Harvard Boy out for a drive next weekend, but her conscious mind scolded it. It was rude to plan your next date when you still hadn't finished the one you were on.

"Penny for your thoughts," her companion said, reaching out to adjust the jacket he'd placed over her bare shoulders. The skimpy sundress she wore was perfect for a summer day, but the nights could get a bit chilly.

"I was just thinking," she purred, nestling into Chester's arms. "How I haven't yet thanked you properly for helping me out with those files."

"Hey, I just gave you the passkey to the copy machine. It wasn't anything."

Tracy reached up to place a small kiss on his chin, her eyes glowing mischievously. "You'll never know how much that one small act meant to me." She kissed him again, this time a little more purposefully. He was sort of cute, after all, despite his lack of ambition. She wrapped her arms around his neck, ready for another round of heavy making out.

"Your father would kill me—" Chester began, nervous enough, but not so nervous that he made any real effort to stop her.

"I believe Daddy is going to be very reasonable for the rest of the summer," Tracy whispered in his ear. "At least where I'm concerned." She blew a stream of cool air into his ear and was pleased with his resulting groan of pleasure. "Besides, what Daddy doesn't know will never hurt you, right?"

"We'll just keep this to ourselves…" He agreed, just as he'd agreed to this one time only ride in her car as a thank you for his help with her copying needs. Chester, it turned out, was very agreeable.

Tracy laughed, pulling him down on top of her so that they could fully explore the back seat's potential. "Now, where's that penny you promised me?"

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	12. 010 Think

**Title: **Think  
**Fandom: **General Hospital  
**Characters: **Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#10 Think  
**Word Count: **699 words  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Summary: **Bound, gagged, and waiting for Helena Cassadine to come and kill her, Tracy Quartermaine has little else to do but think.  
**Author's Notes: **Set April, 2005. This is done in stream of consciousness, Tracy's thoughts while she's tied to the wheelchair. Not my usual style, but hopefully it will be a good, quick read. (Probably just my reaction to that whole "plot" thing from the last prompt…. Gods, I'm so lazy!)  
**Some mature content; but nothing overt.**

Think, Tracy.

Think.

There's a way out of every trap, and this one's no different.

Look for a flaw, look for a weakness. Look for an opportunity. There's always something to exploit, something to slam through. You just have to find it.

God, my wrists are getting numb. I'm going to strangle him with my bare hands when I get out of this. I'm going to wipe that self-aggrandizing smirk off his beady little face the moment…

No, _think_, Tracy. Don't get distracted. Don't follow the anger; use your head, like Daddy taught you.

Think.

Quick inventory, kid. Wrists bound. Check. Gagged. Check. Regular chair? No, that wheelchair. At least you're not blindfolded. You can see, and that's an advantage. He can't sneak up on you.

What about the drug? Any residual side effects? Dizzy? Nauseous? Trouble tracking or connecting ideas? No.

Son-of-a-bitch. Damned cocky rotten son-of-a-bitch! How dare he? How _dare_ he? I will—

No, stay focused.

Look around. Roulette wheel there. Stairs behind you—can't roll up that way. The phone is still here. The phone is still here, and you've got wheels. Can you move your feet? Can you push--? Oh, DAMN, that hurts.

I'm so going to make him regret the day his parents were born.

God, I ache. I need to stretch. Everything hurts.

Nobody likes a whiner, Tracy. Focus!

The phone. 9-1-1. Even if I can't talk, I can scream. You don't have to give your address anymore—they do that caller ID thing now. All I have to go is get to the phone, knock the receiver off the hook, and … oh, god. What'll they think? Oh, god, I look like an idiot—tied to a freaking wheelchair by a madman using me as bait for the Great White Helena!

Don't think about it, Tracy. Now isn't the time for pride. Helena Cassadine isn't going to worry about your damned pride when she's blowing your brains out.

Dillon, you rotten ungrateful wretch. You horrible unforgiveable child. I actually _tried_ with you, and this is how you repay me?

_I have no daughter._

Stop it! Focus. Damn it, now is not the time to dredge up all those things. The phone, the phone!

_I have no daughter._

Okay, listen, think. Just think, Tracy. You can sit here, fighting with demons, bitching about Luke and Dillon and the unjustice of it all, whining oh, boo-hoo, my Daddy never loved me, I'm going to die without his approval, blah blah blah, or you can get to that DAMNED phone and call 9-1-1.

What is it, Tracy?

Breathe. That's it. Just keep pushing. You've gotten out of worse scrapes than this.

Luke Spencer is an idiot.

Focus.

He plays such a game, pretends to be so sexually deviant—whips, chains, sex toys, cream cheese—whatever his kink. He doesn't know anything about anything, the fucking amateur.

_Focus._

BDSM 101, asshole. Never leave a bound person unattended. They could have a stroke, or a heart attack—you're not supposed to leave them alone.

Focus, and do not distract yourself. Foot on the floor—move the damned chair…

Marco Dane. Now _there_ was a man who knew a thing or two about knots… Alex Masters? Mmm…he could tie me up anytime.

_The phone_, Tracy. Get to the phone.

Luke Spencer will regret this.

Just a few…inches…more…

I will make him pay in ways he never imagined possible. He will spend a YEAR of his life paying for this one night—more, maybe. He will regret this in ways he can't even begin to fathom.

Almost there…

"Honey, I'm home!" Luke Spencer entered the room, and Tracy knew her opportunity had passed. "Hey -- I thought I took that thing off," he said, referring to the gag, which he started to remove.

Luke was back, and this little drama was going to play out by his rules, on his terms.

Damn.

She waited for him to get the damned gag out of her mouth. There were so many things she had to say to him, so many choice words… " So many people are going to pay for this little caper, I don't know where to begin."

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	13. 011 Disgust

**Title: **The Gods of Love  
**Fandom: **General Hospital  
**Characters: **Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#11 Disgust  
**Word Count: **619 words  
**Rating: **PG  
**Summary: **A world-weary Tracy reflects on young love, in all its disgusting glory.  
**Author's Notes: **Real life has made our girl a little cynical about love.

They're so adorable. Like little kittens, or puppies frolicking.

Tracy hates kittens, and puppies are rarely call for bell-ringing joy on her part.

Tracy wants to be evil, like Cruella da Ville, so people will keep their kitten and puppy tendencies safely away from her.

Tracy likes being evil, because it keeps her apart, it keeps her insulated from the kittens and the puppies of the world, the softish, playful types who want to coo and bill and frolick in disgusting displays of public affection.

Tracy sits in the airport, her bags packed again, watching this young couple nestling across the way. They are sweet and beautiful, a couple fit to adorn a Hallmark card, or a poster warning against VD.

Tracy feels old next to them, hideous and decrepit and worn by age and care. She wants to throw something at them, at their youth and innocence and beauty.

These two young gods of love…

She is dewey-eyed, thin like they make them this decade, with long hair the color of honey. Her flowered shirt shows her mid-drift, concave at the belly, low-slung jeans framing hips that are slender and tanned, a bright-eyed Aphrodite with hippie tendencies.

He is hard, muscled and toned, his skin much darker than hers, his hair and eyes the color of coal. His arms surround her, protective, possessive, as they play at love and sex and pushing the envelope of how far he can go. His face is perfectly formed, in that beautiful Meditteranean way that she used to be so fond of in her youth, his mouth full and sensuous.

Tracy is watching them through the thin haze of arrogance that comes with age and experience, and she fights the urge to invite them into her lair, where she can regale them with a few truths about life and love.

She is not feeling the desire she once would have had, for a boy like that of her own, for a hard-bodied Adonis to protect her as this one protects his Aphrodite. She doesn't long for soft, heavy lips to press against her skin, or hungry hands to push the envelope of what is proper and acceptable.

She is not feeling the urge to be in love she felt in her youth.

Tracy is no longer about love. Love is no longer about Tracy, and both agree it's better that way. Tracy is a mother, yes, but she is not filled with mother-love. She is a wife…was a wife…but there is no domestic urge in her.

The gods of love have declared war on Tracy Quartermaine, and she is fully prepared to level a campaign that will stun the ages.

Tracy Quartermaine is no longer a creature of love.

Tracy Quartermaine is no longer a victim of love.

Tracy Quartermaine, she thinks to herself as the young couple kiss, sweet and hopeful, in the waiting room at Heathrow International Airport…

Tracy Quartermaine, she thinks as the pain of failure bites into her, lobbies against her defences…

Tracy Quartermaine will never fall in love again.

"Mummy?" A boy's voice tears her gaze away from the couple, and Ned is there at her side. He is getting so tall, with just enough of a British accent that she will miss it when it fades. Boarding school will take care of most of that, and summers in New York the rest. "Isn't Daddy coming with us?"

Tracy Quartermaine Ashton takes a deep breath, her heart breaking again. "No, Ned. Your father is staying in England." And before he can ask why, yet again, the announcer comes on the loudspeaker.

The flight for New York is now boarding at Gate 17.

It's time to go home.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	14. 012 Shelter

**Title: **Cleo & Tony Take on the Winds  
**Fandom: **General Hospital  
**Characters: **Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#12 Shelter  
**Word Count: **4,225 words  
**Rating: **PG  
**Summary: **Two young rebels weather a storm together.  
**Author's Notes: **Past!fic. Written in response to ILoveTracyQ's request for a young Luke and Tracy story. Both are around 17.

She came in like a bat out of hell, the wind from the storm whistling and howling behind her as she pushed open the barn door and pulled the horse in behind her.

The boy watched quietly from his vantage point in the hayloft as she led the horse to its stall. She was about his age and wore a blue plaid shirt and tight, faded jean tucked into her boots. From what little the boy knew about horses, it looked to him like she knew what she was doing as she calmed the animal. They were both drenched from the storm, and both seemed pretty spooked.

"C'mon, Chauncy," she was saying in that clipped, precise tone these rich girls got. He knew she was one of them, and not some stable-hand's daughter. He'd seen her when he jumped the fence, riding with her long, brown ponytail flying behind her, like she was some sort of Queen of the Universe. "Calm down!" It was an order, but the horse only half-heartedly obeyed. It was too spooked by the storm.

The boy inched his way to the edge of the loft, quietly, so she wouldn't notice him watching her. He hadn't intended to get trapped in the barn when he cut across the country club grounds on his way home--he did it all the time, and never got caught.

But the storm had come up quickly, and he was pretty sure a barn was safer than a golf course in a lightning storm. He watched the girl, expertly handling a horse that practically dwarfed her in size. She was confident, but struggling, and it was too much for her when a bolt of lightening spooked the horse. By the time the thunder sounded, she was across the stall on the ground, and the boy was hurling himself down the ladder to help her out.

He ran into the stall just as she was getting to her feet, dazed, and grabbed her just before the horse's front hooves landed where she'd just been. The force of impact sent them sprawling, and they landed, skidding, in a clump of hay that was fragrant with the aroma of stale horse dung.

They both lay there, him on top of her, stunned for a long moment, before she pushed him off of her with a horrified look on her face. "Ugh, gross!" she said, shaking the horse shit off her shirt sleeves in disgust. "What the i _hell_ /i do you think you're doing?"

"Um, you're welcome," the boy responded, brushing off his own jeans with a sick feeling in his stomach. "Sorry I saved your life," he added, sarcastically.

The girl was already pulling off the wet shirt, revealing a tiny white tank top underneath, which was also soaked in a way the boy found extremely distracting. She wadded up the shirt and tossed it over the stall door, turning to him with a look of fury on her face. "Saving my life? You nearly got me killed."

The boy was about to respond with a particularly sarcastic remarks about damsels in distress and horse shit, but he was sort of stuck on her face--looking at it. She was pretty, but not too pretty. Smart looking, but not an egghead. And she looked like hell on wheels, what with the rage and the eyes shooting sparks and the steam coming out of her ears. He couldn't help himself--he started to grin at her. "Sorry. Big horse hooves, tiny rich girl. Seemed like a bad combination to me."

She rolled her eyes, especially at the "tiny rich girl" part, and tossed her thick wet locks behind her as she turned her attention back to the horse, who was still jumpy and nervous. She 'shhhd' the horse, reaching out a hand to stroke his nose. "Calm down, boy," she murmured to the animal, who pushed his head into her hand, allowing himself to be stroked. "Don't let the stupid townie boy frighten you."

"Hey!" The boy stepped up behind her, attempting and failing to get her attention as she began to remove the horse's gear. "Who says I'm a townie?"

She cast him a dismissive glance over her shoulder. "Well, you obviously don't belong i _here_ /i ." With another toss of her hair, she indicated the country club in general. "You're one of those stupid town boys who thinks it's some sort of big thrill to jump the fence and try to mingle with their betters."

"Ouch." But he was amused, now, at this arrogant little Horse Queen. "What makes you think I'm not just some member's rebel kid?" When he saw her glancing at his faded clothes, he frowned. "Clothes don't make the man, Your Majesty. And," he added, nodding toward her jeans and taking an extra long glance at her wet tank top. "You're not exactly wearing diamonds and chiffon."

She rolled her eyes as she unhooked the saddle and lifted it off the horse. "What moron wears diamonds and chiffon to go horse-back riding, Townie Boy?"

"What moron goes horse-back riding in a lightening storm, Princess Debutante?"

"It wasn't raining when I started, you imbecile," she retorted as she removed the blanket from the horse's back. The beast had calmed considerably as she worked with him, and the boy was surprised to see it just standing, calmly, despite the occasional thunder and lightening. "Make yourself useful and hand me that big brush over there. I gotta get him groomed before I go back to the club house."

He reached behind him to where a huge brush was hanging from a nail on the wall. He tossed it in the air a little, letting it fally heavily in the palm of his hand before giving it to her. "I would have thought you had peons to do that sort of thing."

"We groom our own horses." This was delivered with as much arrogant condescention as he figured a girl her size could hold. "You obviously know nothing about horses."

"I know enough to know that if you waste time brushing that horse, you're going have hell getting back to the club house." He nodded behind them to an empty stall, where the wind was having its way with the heavy wooden shutters. "As it is, I'm not sure if I'm gonna make it across the--" He paused, not wanting to finish. "Back to my car."

She laughed at him. "You'd probably better just, uh, stay here." She flashed him a knowing smile and began brushing the horse. "I mean, nobody's going to come looking for you in the storm, and you're much safer than you would be cutting across the golf course on your way to the poor side of the tracks." She was still smiling, and even though the boy knew there was a devil behind those pearly whites, he had to smile back. "What's your name, anyway, Townie Boy?"

Whoa, he thought, realizing it probably wasn't a good idea to give her his real name. He thought about it, and then affected his best James Dean and a fake Brooklyn accent. "Anthony." He pronounced it Ant-nee, and gave her a flirtatious little smile. "But my friends call me Tony." It was a good enough lie.

She giggled, still brushing that damned horse. Her shoulders were smooth and tanned, even this early in the summer. Classes couldn't have been out a whole week, and she looked like she'd spent a month by shore. "I would have guessed Ant. Or Knee."

"Very funny," but he was chuckling too. This was turning into a not-so-bad situation. "What's your name, Princess?"

She paused, obviously thinking of a fake name as well. "Cleopatra," she said with a hysterically funny "dramatic" look on her aristocratic face. "But my friends call me Your Majesty."

He bowed. "Nice to meet you, Cleo," he said, then pulled back as a huge crack of thunder spooked the horse and it began to jump and prance. "Who, girl!" he said, reaching out to help her calm the horse.

" i _His /i _name is Chauncy," Cleo said, lifting his hand and putting it in the right spot on the horse's mane. "And he's a i _male_ /i ."

Tony laughed, saying, "Right on, stud."

"Wrong again," she responded in a sing-song voice. "He's a gelding."

"Is that like a thoroughbred?"

She began to laugh, both mocking and real humor intermixed. "Uh, no, it means he has no…um, well, let's just say there aren't going to be any little Chauncies running around." She stared at Tony pointedly, lowering her gaze to his groin area for emphasis.

Tony pondered her meaning for a minute. When it hit him, he winced instinctively. "That's inhuman!" he said, with new sympathy for the poor horse.

Cleo, on the other hand, was stroking the poor emasculated thing's neck with a certain tenderness. "Oh, it's not so bad. It makes them very docile." She cast him an innocent look. "Maybe you should consider it?"

"Maybe I should get the hell outta this freak show," Tony said and started to head toward the door.

She was behind him in a flash, her strong, slender hands on his arm, stopping him. "No, wait. I was just joking. You should stay," she said sincerely. "It's too dangerous."

The boy hesitated, considering. She really was a bitch, and he really needed to get home to check on his sister. But the storm was getting pretty bad. He could hear the sound of tiny hail on the barn roof, and knew that it would be hell getting all the way to the fence and home with that coming down. "All right, but no funny stuff."

She was already pulling away, a sly smile on her face. She was walking backwards, inch by inch, her slim hips swaying with the unnatural motion. Her hair, which was pulled back into a single pony tail, was beginning to dry, and several wisps fell around her face, framing it. "No funny stuff," she said in a voice that implied she really, really got off on the funny stuff.

Tony couldn't help himself. He just had to bite. "So, Princess Cleopatra, you gonna stay with me to ride out the storm?" He nodded behind him in the general direction of the club house. "It's a lot warmer in here, and well…" He tugged at the waistband of his jeans just a little. "I'm not in the least bit…docile."

She paused, then groaned when she realized his meaning. "Oh, you are just so crude."

"Well, I should have guessed I didn't stand a chance with you." He followed her as she led Chauncy to the end of the stall and tied him up. "I mean, the last thing you had between your legs was a horse."

She turned around in a flash and slapped him, her eyes wide with rage. "Of all the sick--"

He grabbed he wrists, pulling her to him and stealing a kiss, which led to an even harder slap across the face, but was definitely worth it for the rise it got out of her. "What's the matter, Cleo? Can't take a joke?"

Well, obviously she couldn't, because she stormed past him, fuming as she headed for the door. "I am i _reporting_ /I you to club security," she said.

"Oooh, I'm shaking in my cowboy boots!" he called after her, thinking of course that now he was going to have to find another place to hide out before she got back with the fuzz. He was almost caught up to her when she stopped dead in her tracks in the open door. "What?"

"Oh….my….god…." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the wind and rain had died down a little so he had no trouble hearing her.

"What's the matt-" He stopped, just behind her, as his eyes lit on what had her paralyzed in the open door. "Holy shit," he said under his breath.

It was a twister, hovering just over the field separating the barn from the golf course. It wasn't enormous, but it was big enough that he was glad he had used the bathroom before heading home. It hadn't touched down yet, but it was black and forbidding and scary as hell.

"Oh, my god…" Cleo turned to him, a look of abject terror on her face. "We have to…we have to…"

"Find some place to--"

"Take shelter!" She was grabbing his arm, dragging him back into the barn. Her head shifted frantically as she scanned the area for a place of relative safety. "We need to get away from the doors and windows. Move inward."

"Is there a storm cellar?"

She stared at him, hands upward in an incredulous gesture. "What is this, Kansas? No, we don't have a storm cellar in the barn!" She was starting to panic, and he knew he had to take control.

"Okay, come on, emergency drills. They have them all the time in school. What do you do for a tornado?"

"I always cut emergency drills," she admitted. She was really starting to look scared.

"Head between your knees?" He shook his head. The horses were starting to get restless. He could hear the others, not just Chauncy, getting fidgety in their stalls. "No, a ditch. If you're outside, you're supposed to find a ditch to lie in."

"A bathtub. You're supposed to lie in a bathtub and put a mattress over your head!" she said, pointing to an empty stall towards the end of the row. "We can use an empty trough. It's big enough, and heavier than a bathtub. We can grab a bale of hay, maybe, instead of a mattress."

"Good thinking, Ninety-nine," he said. "You head for the trough, I'll get the bale." But she ignored him, hurrying straight ahead of him to the stack of bales and tugging on the top one.

"They're not too heavy," she said as she pulled it off. "But they're bulky. It'll take both of us. Come on!" Soon they were working together, dragging the bale toward the empty stall and relative safety. He was just about to help her in when Cleo screamed, pulling away and heading for Chauncy's stall. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I tied him up! If that thing hits, he could get strangled." She was running towards the stall now, and Tony followed her against his better instincts. Already it was starting to get noisy outside, as the winds around the twister started hurling objects large and small in its path.

The horse was in full panic by the time they got there, bucking and straining against his confinement. Cleo threw open the stall door and went straight for him, grabbing the ties and struggling to unhook him from the ring on the wall. Tony was right behind her, and between the two of them, they managed to get the horse free. He bolted, kicking through the stall door and was out the front door before they could stop him. When Cleo started to run after him, Tony stopped her, practically dragging her towards the empty trough.

"He'll be okay," he yelled over the noise, which was getting louder and louder now that the door was open. They couldn't see the twister anymore, but the air was black and heavy and he knew they'd better take cover or they'd have more than a runaway horse to worry about. "Come i _on_ /i !"

With one last look towards the door, she turned and followed him. By the time they had scrambled into the trough and pulled the bale over them, the door of the barn had flown off and the winds were terrible.

Tony lay flat on his stomach, covering Cleo with his body. Under different circumstances, this would have been a wet dream come true. As it was, he had to keep himself from crying in fear like a little baby. He rest his head on her shoulder, her arms tight around him as they lay in the cramped space, shivering with fear.

"Tony," she said into his ear. Her breath seemed unnaturally warm in the close space, and he noticed that her smell was a wonderful combination of sweat, perfume, and girl.

"What?" he said into her tank top, still damp and stretched tight against her skin.

"Are we going to die?"

He closed his eyes. No way was he going to die in a barn with a beautiful snob he'd never even gotten to first base with. "Hell, no, Your Majesty."

"Good," she said, holding him tighter. "Because I don't want to die." Her lips were on his jaw, and before he could even register what was going on, she was kissing him frantically. "I don't want to die a virgin," she added, moaning as she kissed him hard on the mouth.

_i Aw, hell!_ /i the boy thought as he felt his natural instincts kick in, in the most embarrassing of ways. But, humiliating physical responses aside, he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He kissed her back gamely, and when the full force of the winds hit, he was just getting his hands under that sexy white tank top. The last thing he thought before everything went crazy was that her skin was incredibly soft.

It was pitch black when he came to, and there was a heavy weight on his chest. He felt a wave of panic hit him, along with the random thought that heaven smelled really good. That was before his brain started working, and he realized that the weight was an unconscious Cleo, draped on top of him. They were in a dark, cramped place, and she was so much dead weight.

Tony tested his arms to the left and right, and figured out pretty quickly that they were trapped i _under_ /i the trough. He pushed at the sides, but they were not going anywhere. "Cleo," he hissed. "Princess, wake up." He wriggled, trying to stir her awake. She groaned, so he knew she wasn't dead, but she wasn't getting up. "Come i _on_ /i , Your Majesty," he said in a louder voice. "Sleepy Time is over. Time to get out of this nice coffin and see what's happening in the Land of Oz."

She stirred, her movements sluggish. "Are we dead?"

"Not today, but we can still work on your little virginity problem, if you're game."

"Ughh!" He could feel her moving to hit him, but she stopped short, crying out in real pain. "Oh, god…"

"What's the matter?"

"My shoulder…oh, my god! It hurts." She was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating from the pain. "Tony--we have to get out of here."

"I was thinking the same thing." He stretched his arms carefully around her until his hands were above her, flat against the bottom of the trough. "Brace yourself--I'll try not to move too quickly." And he pushed. And pushed. And could barely budge it. Catching his breath, he said in a low voice, "I know this is not what you wanna hear, but you're going to have to help me. It's too heavy. Or something's on top of it." He could hear a slight whimper, but she said nothing. "Try to roll over, so you're facing up. You'll have more leverage that way."

He could hear her struggling not to cry out as slowly, achingly, she rolled herself over. It seemed to take ages, and Tony could feel himself hurting in sympathy as she moved. Finally, when she was lying on her back atop him, he wrapped his arms around her waist, letting her rest, whispering that she'd done good, that she was strong and brave and good, saying little encouraging things in her ear.

"I think I can do it, now," she whispered finally, and she pressed her good hand flat against the surface above them. Tony's hands joined hers and together they pushed with all their might, until finally the trough began to budge.

"Get ready, Cleo," he said grimly. "It's gonna take a big push to get this all the way."

He could hear the grim determination in her voice as she said, "I'm ready. Do it."

And they pushed with their entire bodies, an agonizing moan ripping out of Cleo's throat as they managed to force the heavy prison off of them, onto its side. Tony had to resist the urge to push her off of him, to rush his freedom. Instead, he carefully helped her up, mindful of her hurt shoulder, until they were sitting amidst the rubble. Tony turned to assess the damage and gave a low whistle.

There was no sign of the twister. Or the horses. Or most of the barn. Only a single wall remained--and not the one Chauncy had been tied to. She'd been right--if she'd left him tied up, he would have been killed when the winds pulled it away.

Not that he had a 100 chance of survival out there…

"Are you okay?" he asked Cleo, who was sitting in the dim light, looking around her. The clouds had already partially broken, and there was a hint of sunlight mocking them from above.

"I think so." She shook her head slightly, as if trying to clear it. "My shoulder hurts really badly."

"I'll go get some help. There has to be somebody at the club house who can--"

But Cleo's face got suddenly alert, and she struggled to get to her knees, and then with his help, a standing position. "No! You have to go."

"But you're hurt."

"Don't worry about me," she insisted, looking around frantically to see if anybody was on their way from the club house. "You need to get out of here. Now!" When he only stared at her, confused, she started to explain in a voice filled with shame. "I overheard my father talking to some of the other members. There's been vandalism from townies who jumped the fence. I heard them saying that the next townie they caught trespassing, they were going to make an example of." She couldn't look into his eyes. "That's why I told you to stay. I was stalling you."

"You were setting me up."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you. But now I do, and you need to go." She pushed him with her uninjured arm, towards the golf course, towards home, towards freedom. "I don't want you to get arrested, Tony," she added in a soft voice.

"Hey, ain't nothin' at all!" And with a grin, he took a step backwards and was about to pivot on his heels and high-tail it out of there when she stopped him.

"Tony?" she said, her hand on his shoulder. "What's your real name?"

He winked. "Lucas. Lucas Lorenzo."

She smiled, her entire demeanor brightening. "Much better than Ant-Knee."

"And what about you, Princess Cleopatra? What's on your drivers' license?"

"Tracy," she said, leaning in to kiss him gently on the cheek. "Tracy Lila." And then, after a swift, hard kiss on the lips, she pushed him away. "Go!"

"Hey, I'll be back, Princess Tracy. Keep your eyes open! I'll own this joint one day." And he was running, heading out to the open spaces, where he belonged.

And he didn't turn back to see her collapse.

i _She woke in the hospital, with her mother sitting at her bedside. There was a huge bandage around her shoulder and arm, and her head felt thick and achy. "Mommy?" It was a name she didn't use anymore, a name that babies used, but Tracy Quartermaine felt babyish for a moment. "What happened, Mommy?"_

_"Oh, my darling Tracy!" Her mother was there in a heartbeat, arms wrapped around carefully but joyously, her sweet scent comforting and pervasive. "You're awake!"_

_"I hurt," she said plaintively, but not letting her mother back away. It didn't matter if it hurt, as long as Lila was there. "What happened?"_

_"Shh….child, you need to rest. You've dislocated your shoulder, and you have a mild concussion. Your father is taking a plane from Philadelphia tonight. He'll be here when you wake."_

_"Daddy's coming home?" She must be in a lot of trouble. "Is Chauncy okay?"_

_"All the horses got out safely," Lila said in a kind voice. "You were lucky, my precious, to come out of that alive." And she was still kissing Tracy's hair, and forehead, and cheeks._

_It was okay, Tracy thought, to be babied once in a while._

_"What about the boy?" she asked, struggling to remember his name. She could see his face--those dark, intense eyes, that odd curly hair, the funny smile. "Is he okay?"_

_"What boy, Tracy?"_

_"The boy in the barn. The one who helped me untie Chauncy…."_

_Lila began to chuckle. "You must have hit your head harder than I feared, darling. There was no boy in the barn."_

_"But…"_

_"Shhhh….it was all a dream, I'm sure."_

_Tracy drew in a deep breath. She was so tired, and the effort of trying to remember was wearing her out. "It seemed so real," she murmured._

_"Of course it did, sweetheart." _

_It felt so good here, just being held by her mommy. And maybe the boy had been a dream after all. A funny, odd dream. "His name was Anthony," she yawned, and drifted off to sleep._ /i

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	15. 013 Borrow

**Title: **Something Borrowed  
**Fandom: **General Hospital  
**Characters: **Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#13 Borrow  
**Word Count: **1,149 words  
**Rating: **PG  
**Summary: **Tracy looks for something borrowed…  
**Author's Notes: **Set during the Vow Renewal storyline. May 2006. As my girlfriend, Fey, says, I just can't let the swan dress go already.

It only seems right, Tracy Quartermaine thinks to herself as she sits on the bed, wrapped in a towel, her skin still damp from the shower. A sham wedding, a sham marriage. Why not a sham vow renewal? She grabs the folded towel she's tossed on the bed and begins to dry her legs. Not as slim as they once were, she notes with a scrutinizing eye, but still shapely. She moves up to her arms and shoulders, her upper back and neck, enjoying the feel of the thick material against her skin.

She is trying not to feel what she is feeling, one of those uncomfortable tricks she's taught herself over the years. She is focusing on the list of things in her head, the systematic schedule of events she's quickly thrown together in response to this, the latest crisis in a series of numbskull crises presented to her by her n'er-do-well husband.

She's trying not to feel what she is feeling.

She doesn't want to feel the quiver of enthusiasm in her belly, that wholly inappropriate excitement of planning an event. This isn't an event. It's a farce, and everyone—including the blushing bride and groom—are painfully aware of it.

Still, she lingers over her preparations, this spray and that gel, powdering and primping. There are two outfits draped over her bed, vying for her attention--the Chanel suit, which is appropriately off-white and devastatingly chic, and the Vera Wang, which is sleek and sexy and makes her feel twenty years younger.

She is searching through her dresser, nude stockings or darker, when she sees the packet. She tries not to smile, because she knows that she has no business wearing these. Still she pulls the package from the dresser, opens it slowly, and drapes the hose over her outstretched fingers. Silk hose, the old fashioned kind, the kind one only wears for a specific, erotic reason anymore.

She laughs to herself, thinking how amusing it would be to wear these under her Vera Wang or Coco Chanel, how only she'd know it, definitely not her clueless husband who kisses her only when there's an audience to be made jealous.

She laughs to herself, because she knows she is being ridiculous even considering the possibility of wearing them.

And then she stops laughing, because she wants for it not to be so damned funny. Tracy puts the hose back in the drawer. They're brand new, so she takes a moment to carefully place them back in the package.

Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue.

She's looking at the bracelet she's chosen, a sapphire-studded tennis bracelet Ned gave to her on her 50th birthday.

Something blue.

She looks at the package of hosiery, sexy and silent as it mocks her for even thinking it.

Something new.

Lila used to say that. Tracy remembers her first wedding, back when she was nervous about such things, back when she still pretended to be shy. She remembers Lila speaking of such things, and her derisive mockery of the superstition.

Tracy has had five weddings, and never once has she done the ritual.

She stares at the bracelet and the hosiery, thinking of her mother, thinking of how—oddly enough—this sham of a marriage has been happier than the other four combined.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.

She is wrapped in her robe before she knows it. She doesn't know what she wants or what she's looking for as she heads up the narrow stairway to the attic where Lila's things are stored. She is on her knees next to the boxes, sifting through old knick-knacks, dried bouquets, old letters with foreign stamps from Lila's family back in England.

She is searching for something, maybe legitimacy, in her dead mother's memories, aware of and unconcerned by the passing time.

She's the damned bride, and they can wait for her.

She's about to give it up, admit the futility of her ambiguous searching, when she sees it. There's a long metal rack on wheels, taking up the majority of the floor space. It's been here as long as Tracy can remember, this rack full of memories. When she was very little, she used to love to play here in the dresses that hung from the rack. Beautiful dresses from the 40s and 50s, old Halloween costumes lovingly preserved from hers and Alan's childhoods. She gets to her feet, drawn to it, as if she could find pure bliss if only she could bury herself in that forest of fabric.

She sees her debutante dress, perfectly beautiful and white, and remembers how much she was_not_ the picture of virtue that night. She sees the suit Alan wore for his first wedding, and remembers how much she hated him back then, how awful they were to each other.

She sees her father's old tuxedo, and touches it tentatively, as if her mere presence is a destructive force that will turn it to dust on contact.

And when she sees Lila's dress, she knows what she's come for. It's not anything she would ever have worn. In fact, she finds it rather dowdy. It's white, in that old fashion of late 60s glamour that went overboard with the ruffles and the frills. She reaches out a single hand, trying to remember when her mother wore this dress, finding she can't place it. But it's very much Lila.

It's soft and delicate, not a hint of tailored anything to it. It's flowing and frilly, not to mention white.

It seems too large to have belonged to Lila, though Tracy knows this is because her mind is remembering her stooped and shrunken with age, the wisp of a creature her mother became, not the vital, energetic woman her mother had been.

The truth be told, at her peak, Lila had been roughly the same size as Tracy was now, a fact she quickly verified by checking the label in the back.

She is sure the dress will look ridiculous on her, that she will seem awkward and foolish in it.

But the dress is old.

And the dress is Lila's—she will return it once she's done.

The dress is borrowed.

Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue.

And when she has put away the Chanel and put away the Vera Wang, when she has dug into the jewelry box for the enormous white bead necklace of her mother's she never thought she'd find a use for, when she's put up her hair like Lila used to do, that glamorous up-do she'd never quite managed to pull off, she knows she can face what is about to happen.

It was a sham wedding.

It was a sham marriage.

But, now, as she heads downstairs to face her family and her husband, at least Tracy feels like a real bride.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	16. 014 Chair

**Title: ** La Vie En Rose  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: ** #14 Chair  
**Word Count: ** 1,309 words  
**Rating: ** G  
**Summary: ** Tracy teaches Dillon a lesson in culture, and Dillon teaches Tracy a lesson in hope.  
**Author's Notes: ** Past!fic. Set when Tracy and Dillon are living in Europe. Dillon is about eight. Just too sugary sweet for words. You've been warned.

Paris was beautiful. Tracy breathed it all in, the streets, the energy, the loveliness of it all. Her hand was wrapped in Dillon's as he walked next to her through the Sarbonne district. His eyes were everywhere, wide and excited, and she couldn't help laughing. She remembered, as she always did, her first trip here when she was twelve, with Lila. She'd been so excited she couldn't sleep at all. She'd wanted to see everything, do everything, buy everything…

Funny how some things never changed.

"This is a wonderfully historic part of the town," she said, affecting the tone of a tour guide. "The most amazing artists and writers and philosophers called Paris their home, Dillon. You're going to fit in just fine."

It was wishful thinking. She _hoped_ he would fit in fine. She had no idea where he would fit in, or where they would live, or how she would see to his education. The split with the Solieto family had, as she knew it would, left her practically destitute. Already she was feeling the brunt of it, the sleepless nights, the nightmares, the worrying about where they would get their next influx of cash. She'd called in every favor she could to get them here, not to mention several well-placed groveling sessions.

It was barely enough to get her on her feet, but she was here, and Dillon was far away from New York, away from the sordid life she wanted so much to leave behind. It was enough, but just barely, and Tracy fully intended to change her direction, if only to give her son a chance at a good life. She'd been through worse times, and Tracy knew there was no challenge she couldn't face, as long as she stayed tough, as long as she remembered who she was.

"You'll have to brush up your French," she said breezily as she pointed out a chair she liked in an antique shop window. It was Louis VIV, like the ones she'd had in the sitting room of their condo in New York. It was so far out of her price range now she didn't even want to think about it. "You've got the basics, but I'm sure you'll pick up the finer points in no time." She paused to admire the chair, but found herself admiring their reflection in the shop glass even more.

Tracy and Dillon, mother and son, hand in hand on the streets of Paris on a beautiful summer day. It was like something out of an Audrey Hepburn movie. Her son was so amazing to her--this handsome, soft-spoken child who rarely complained, never acted up. This bright little man who had the biggest imagination, who always made her smile, who always kept her sane, even when she thought it was only moments until she went completely mad.

She wondered how much he remembered of his early life, how much he remembered of Europe, of traveling so much, of running to and from places, sometimes with bill collectors right on their heels. She'd dragged him here as a baby, running as she always seemed to be, from his father, from her father, from the mess she'd left behind in Port Charles. Now there was another mess she was running from, and Tracy had to fight another wave of depression.

A good mother would give this child a steady home. A good mother wouldn't keep moving him around, from place to place, from school to school, from stepfather to "uncles" to Mommy all alone again….

"Am I going to have tutors again, Mom?" he asked, leaning his head against her hip as he did. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder, brushing his hair from his eyes. It was getting long, and she'd need to get it cut soon. "I liked regular school. It was fun, being with the other kids," he added hopefully.

Tracy sighed. It was still summer. She hadn't really gotten that far yet, hoping against hope that her financial situation would improve significantly before the school year started. "We'll see, Dillon," she said. "I haven't made any definite arrangements, yet."

"Mom?" He looked up at her, his enormous blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. "I'm glad we came to Paris."

Tracy lowered herself until she was eye-level to him, cupping his cheek in the palm of her hand as she traced his jaw with the pad of her thumb. "I'm sorry I had to pull you out of school early."

"I'm not!" He laaughed, and so did she for a moment. "And I'm glad you're not working for the Solieto's anymore," he added with a little frown. "You were always so…angry…when you worked for them."

"I wasn't angry, really," she said, wishing she knew how to explain it to him--without scarring his little psyche permanently. "It's just…it was a stressful job."

"And the Solietos didn't like you very much," Dillon added with a hell of a lot more perception than she'd given him credit for. "Was it because Gino died so fast after you got married?"

Tracy's jaw dropped slightly, and she laughed softly as her eyes shot upward in an expression of surprise. "Uh, well, yeah, I suppose they…um, associated me with Gino's death. That would make anybody unhappy, don't you think?"

"I don't think they were right to be mean to you, Mom," he said plainly. "It's not your fault he was old."

Tracy chuckled, loving this little man so much at the moment. Leave it to him to stumble on to the gist of the matter, and still see the best of things. "Well, I can understand," she said diplomatically. "They loved him. If anything happened to you, I'd probably be mad at anybody I associated with it, too."

"Even if it wasn't their fault?"

She drew him to her, hugging him gently. "People aren't really rational when it comes to their loved ones." She knew she'd made the right choice, taking him away from New York and the Solietos. Now, if she could only prevent _herself_ from screwing him up completely, Dillon might have a chance of growing into one hell of a man.

"Mom," her son said, as they drew apart and she stood, turning to admire the chair again. "You aren't gonna buy that, are you?" There was a not so subtle hint of disgust in his voice as he said it.

Tracy stared at the chair. Two months ago, she could have had it bought, paid for, and shipped overnight to the States without even thinking about the cost. Now, she wasn't sure she could cover the taxes. "Uh, no. Not while we're in the hotel."

"Thank God! I hate those chairs." He started tugging at her hand, tired of window shopping. "They wobble, and I'm always afraid I'm going to break them. Can we get something to eat?"

Tracy laughed, letting herself be drawn back into the real world, out of her own mind, out of her own worries. "What did you have in mind, my little bottomless pit?"

"Can we go to the two-story Burger King? It's around here, isn't it?"

Tracy laughed, a look of mock disgust on her face. "You're in the culinary capital of the universe, and you want fast food?"

"It's supposed to be great, Mom. It's got two stories, and they have this big disco ball, and they serve wine and everything…."

She pulled him to a stop, kissing the top of his head with vigor as she hugged him. "One time, just to have the experience. And then, my son, I am going to teach you what real food is all about."

"Okay," he nodded, then hesitated. "Just…no snails, okay?"

"No snails," Tracy agreed, and headed off with her son to get the one meal she was absolutely sure she could afford.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	17. 015 Alter

**Title: ** The Game  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: ** #15 Alter  
**Word Count: ** 1,667 words  
**Rating: ** G  
**Summary: ** Tracy plays a game.  
**Author's Notes: ** AU: Dillon gets Tracy hooked on a game, and it starts her thinking about what might have been.

The game was deceptively simple. It started, as so many things started, over supper. Dillon was going on, as he often did, about some film he saw.

A man, Mom, could travel back in time and change pivotal moments in his life. He would go to a pivotal point in time and alter his actions just slightly. Each time he did it, though, he changed the entire tone of his life, and not always in a good way.

That started the speculation. What time would you go to, Mom? What would you do differently? How would it change you?

The game…

Point in time—Summer, 1957.

_Tracy is stuck with the dull-witted son of her father's business partner. Their mothers are having tea, and the children are playing little games to while away the time before dinner. Tracy, naturally given to creative play, has taken the boy in hand, showing him where to sit, how to act, teaching him the rules as she makes them up._

_Several small chairs are pulled together, and the boy is upset. He does not want to play school. It's not school, Tracy explains. This is a conference room. We're playing office—I'll be the president, and you are the vice-president._

_The dull-witted boy does not know what these words mean, and Tracy is impatient as she explains the concepts to him._

_"That can't be right. A girl can't be a boy's boss."_

_Tracy is so angry, she pushes him and the chair he's sitting in over onto floor. He runs crying to his mother, and Tracy is punished for the rest of the week._

Alteration:

_Tracy smiles, biting down her rude response, and pulls out her art supplies. They draw quietly together for the rest of the afternoon, and the boy dutifully thanks her when his mother comes to gather him off in the evening._

Change:

_Tracy Ashton sits alone in her charming manor, fat and lazy and bored out of her mind. She is resigned to the drudgery of life as Lady Ashton, with the endless garden parties and charitable events. She thinks sometimes she might like to take a job, but Lawrence wouldn't approve. She wonders what it would have been like to have a career, but motherhood keeps her busy. And her charity work is very fulfilling…._

Tracy shook her head, opening her laptop as she leaned in bed against a wall of pillows. Not bloody likely, she thought. That would have been a mistake of tragic proportions, stifling her little feminist tendencies before they could even begin to bud. Her attitude may have caused her a lot of trouble over the years, but that's one corner she never would have turned in any direction but the one she took.

She reached over to the night-stand, picking up the pair of glasses she'd left there. No contacts in bed, she reminded herself. Never a good idea. She had work to do, but for some reason, Dillon's game had her attention wavering.

Point in Time – 1981.

_You can have two million dollars, Tracy. Two million dollars, but only if you spend it on your husband's campaign._

_She takes the money, grateful for whatever she can get, and leaves, eventually, to join her husband in Albany._

Alteration:

_Tracy turns to her father, rage filling her body at his arrogance. He has pushed her too far this time, with his tests and his mind games and his demands and his conditions._

_She tells him to go fuck himself, and his two million dollars._

_She walks out of his life, out of Mitch's life, and never looks back._

Change:

_Tracy takes her dinner out of the microwave, burning her finger on the plastic as she removes it to let the food cool. She has had a terrible day at work, but at least it's the weekend. She opens the window, looking out over the river. It's the Mississippi, and she's pretty amazed by it. This year in New Orleans, last year in San Diego. Her consulting position keeps her busy, and she's happy enough with it. She thinks that maybe she might want to put down roots, but whenever she starts down that road, she hears the siren's call of change in the back of her mind…_

_Ned came to visit her at Mardi Gras. It was fun for her, especially catching up on the gossip from Quartermaine Central. That life seems so far away now, all the scheming and backstabbing and lobbying for position. She cooked him a gumbo; it was so terrible they just laughed about it and went down to a little place she knew on Royal Street for a late supper._

Tracy had to laugh at herself. Yeah, she stands up to Daddy and turns into Mary Tyler Moore. No way. She stared at her computer screen—the numbers were all beginning to look alike to her. She didn't want to work tonight, even though she knew the quarterly figures had to be to the accountant by Friday. She'd rather be sleeping, or making love, or soaking in a hot bubble bath.

Or playing The Game.

Point in Time – 1993

_Banished again. Marco Dane has agreed to help her and Dillon, and they are running off to Europe together. She's got the tickets and the money from the stuff he stole from Daddy. It's almost fun this time. It would be fun if her heart wasn't broken…._

Alteration:

_At the last moment, she makes a run for it. She makes her choice, she switches her plans…she double-crosses him. Takes the money, takes her baby, and loses herself in Europe. She's not going to be dependent on any man, ever again. She's not going to trust any man, ever again._

Change:

_Tracy arrives in the Maarkam Islands on a litter carried by four shirtless natives. How ironic that her husband and his mistress are the first people she sees. Luke Spencer at least has the decency to look uncomfortable._

_She is furious with him, and more furious with herself for caring. Luke Spencer is a poor excuse for a husband, but her money has given her this trump card and she fully intends to play it. _

_Tonight, he's going to sleep with her, Holly Sutton be damned._

Tracy closed her laptop. There was a point where speculation went too far, and any reality that had her married to Luke Spencer was a reality she didn't want to consider. She was still chuckling when her husband came in to bed.

"Laughing at nothing, Slugger?"

She reached out a hand to him, pulling him hard onto the bed and kissing him deeply. "Playing Dillon's crazy game."

Marco Dane rolled his eyes. "You know, you'll make yourself crazy worrying about what might have been." He stretched out on the bed next to her, taking her laptop and placing it on the nightstand. "Enough work for you, too. We have a long day tomorrow."

"How is Lila Rose?"

"Stubborn, like her mother—"

"And her father—"

"She is insisting that she shouldn't have to go to Dillon's graduation because—"

"She's going to Dillon's graduation," Tracy said firmly. Marco was a notorious soft-touch where their daughter was concerned, and this new stubborn streak of hers was a little more than he was capable of handling. "You don't graduate from high school every day, and I want the _entire_ family there."

Marco nodded, grateful that Tracy was able to take the hard stance for him. He was okay where regular parental duties came to play, but there were some latent Quartermaine genetic traits that tended to emerge in their kids that only Tracy was qualified to handle. "Um, I talked to Dillon about Paul."

"I told you I'd talk to him," Tracy said, perturbed.

"Look, he was glad he heard it from me. I told him you tried, that you called and you even offered to pay his airfare if money was an issue."

"Fucking bastard," she muttered under her breath, then pulled Marco to her, kissing him on the cheek. "Sorry, baby. I'm not mad at you. It was sweet of you to handle it for me." She played her hand over his head. He'd long since given up on staying the baldness, and shaved it smooth. She never could emphasize enough to him how incredibly sexy she found it. "It was stupid to even think he would come," she continued, wondering to herself why she'd even tried to invite Dillon's biological father. After a few initial attempts, Paul had just given up on trying to be part of his son's life. Lazy, weak, loser of a bastard that he was. "You're the only father my son has ever known. I don't know why I ever even bothered to consider Paul Hornsby."

"Because you want him to have family there. You're hurt because Edward and Lila turned you down, and you—"

"I'm an idiot," she said firmly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "You and Dillon and Lila Rose are the only family I need, the only family I ever needed, baby." She leaned her head against his shoulder, which still felt strong and safe after twelve years of marriage. "Hey, I played the game about you," she laughed. "I tried to imagine what would have happened if I had double-crossed you at the airport, back when we were headed for Europe in ninety-three."

Marco feined mock horror. "Slugger, no! You? Double-cross me?" Both of them knew good and well that Tracy would have been perfectly capable of such an act, especially back then. "What was the outcome?"

She laughed, unbuttoning his shirt as she spoke. "I wound up married to Luke Spencer, and having to blackmail him into having sex with me."

That broke them both up with laughter, and they were still joking about the concept of a Luke-Tracy marriage when they fell asleep an hour later, warm and sated from lovemaking, and ready for their son's big day.

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	18. 016 Peace

**Title: ** Parle-moi de ma mere  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: ** #16 Peace  
**Word Count: ** 787 words  
**Rating: ** G  
**Summary: ** Tracy has a quiet moment on a rainy French afternoon.  
**Author's Notes: ** Set after the 1981 banishment. Tracy has left her second husband, Mitch Williams, and taken refuge in the French countryside. The title means "Speak to me of my mother," and refers to a duet of the same name from Bizet's _Carmen_ (which I was listening to when I wrote this).

She wanders the riverside pathways of Limoges, watching as the rain plays on the Vienne. It is a beautifully sad picture, a young woman in the rain, alone on the streets of an ancient medieval French city as the sky looms heavy and grey above.

She thinks maybe she should go inside, back to her hotel, back to her cases and purses and shoes all lined neatly against the wall of the closet. She thinks maybe she should duck into a café, sip heavy, dark coffee like the locals do, and maybe nibble around the edges of a croissant.

She thinks maybe she should bang on the doors of Saint-Etienne, a modern-day Esmerelda seeking a different sort of sanctuary. The clouds rumble gently above, and the young woman laughs. Tiny drops of rain, cool against the humid warmth of summer, play on her lips as she does, and she licks them with the tip of her tongue.

The rain is sweet in her mouth, and she longs to drown in it, open her lips wide and devour the rain.

She wants to dance naked in it, letting it wash away the grime from her body and soul.

She wants to be judged and found wanting, if only the penalty would be death by rain drops.

The gods have different plans for her, she thinks, than salvation in a gothic cathedral.

She is forgotten there, outside this place, back in the other world of skyscrapers and fax machines and notary publics who don't ask questions when authenticating wills.

She is forgotten there, in that place where the rules are more ancient and cruel than any of the gargoyles guarding Notre Dame.

Damned, and forgotten.

Cast into the pits of hell by God himself, the cruel god of the Quartermaines.

She is the sullied woman, the cast-off, Esmerelda the Whore, yet it doesn't bother her here in this ancient town in southwestern France. She has divorced her husband, her tormentor, and she has fled the world of telephones and Quartermaines.

A hint of thunder in the sky, and a rational part of her wonders if perhaps she should seek shelter. Tracy presses her hand to her heart. It's there, still safely wrapped in a handkerchief, still folded neatly in the international envelope with the perfectly-European letters addressing her name.

Her salvation. No need for skull-capped confessors. No need for the scourge and the sack-cloth.

Her salvation, in the form of a single-page letter. She doesn't need to open it, doesn't need to read it. Her heart has memorized every single word.

_My darling Tracy,_

_Thank you for your recent letter. I know the decision to end the marriage with Mitch was a difficult one, but I understand completely why you chose to do so. Your father, of course, is furious. Do not worry about me, sweetheart. I can handle him._

_I will not say that it is safe for you to return home yet. There is so much anger, so much blame being bandied about this place, that I don't feel it would be wise for you to attempt a reconciliation at this time._

_But I will tell you that your father grieves the loss of you, just as sharply as I do. He is a stubborn and a proud man, just as foolish and difficult as you yourself can be, my Tracy. He will come around in time, I promise you. Under it all, your father loves you, and someday soon, I promise, we will be a family again._

_Until then, my darling one, know that I love you, and forgive you your mistakes, and congratulate you on your bravery. You are a Quartermaine, my love, with all the good and bad that entails. Until we can be together, imagine my arms around you, my kiss on your cheek. Know that I always believe in you; that no matter what, I will always be your loving mother._

_Until we're together…Lila_

Tracy watches as a lone seagull braves drizzling rain to fish in the river. It alone, amongst those coastal birds seeking life so far away from their native waters, has the determination to fish despite the weather.

She is forgotten, on the shores of her home waters. Forgotten, except for the one soul who loves her most, who loves her unconditionally.

She is forgotten, this modern-day Esmerelda, except by the only person who counts, the only person who holds her heart and hope in hand.

Tracy watches the seagull. Tracy watches the rain play on the river, feels it tickling her skin.

Perhaps, maybe…

Perhaps, someday…

She smiles, and raises her face to the sky, tasting the rain on her tongue like a little girl catching snowflakes.

Perhaps…

The End

Written for the **100situations** Challenge.


	19. 017 Beach

**Title:** Christmas at the Beach  
**Fandom:** General Hospital/The City  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #17 Beach  
**Word Count:** 2,443 words  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** Tracy and Jacob share a drink in The City bar on Christmas night.  
**Author's Notes:** Set during Tracy's tenure on _The City_, December 1996. Written after reading three months' worth of plot synopses from _The City_.

She had to admit--walking down five flights of stairs everyday was doing wonders for her legs and thighs. Tracy Quartermaine was not by nature a patient woman, and the elevator in this dive was slow enough and unreliable enough to encourage her new found healthy lifestyle choice.

She hadn't gotten impatient enough yet, of course, to climb _up_ those five flights on a regular basis, but she did on occasion brave it--when she had energy enough, or outrage enough to dare the climb.

Either way, abject poverty had been kind to her muscles, if not her ego, and she found that after ten weeks, she rather enjoyed the trip down from the penthouse of the lousy building Sydney had saddled her with to the bar on the first floor of the lousy building Sydney had saddled her with (thanks to the dismal financial situation Daddy had saddled her with). It gave her not only a great cardio workout, but lots of time to think about how much she loathed Sydney…and Daddy.

She noticed that The City was open--odd, she thought, on Christmas night. She headed to the bar, no longer thinking about how great it was to have firm thighs and a tight ass without the expense of a gym. She was thinking about Sydney, and Daddy, and how she was spending so much time trying to stay afloat that she hadn't even begun to plot her revenge on them.

She was really working her way up to a good mad when Jacob showed up--all dreds and healthy good looks and "gee, I saved your tight, used-to-be-rich ass, so now you have to be nice to me." Tracy could still taste every penny of that fifteen grand, a vulgar, coppery aftertaste on her tongue.

Maybe it would have gone down better if she'd just scammed him, like she planned, if he'd believed her story about the charity for inner city youth. Maybe she could have swallowed stealing his dead son's money more than accepting it as a loan, as charity. A perfect stranger, bailing her out, because she was too broke to save her own hide.

Yet another humiliation on top of the humiliations she'd endured in this latest row with her family.

Was it really only ten weeks since Sydney had trumped her blackmail attempt by saddling her with 51 of this fire hazard--_and_ its seven figure tax debt?

Ten weeks since she'd snuck Dillon and his psalm-singing nanny out of their hotel in the middle of the night, moments ahead of the bill collectors and scandal and the possibility of jail time?

Had it really only been ten weeks that she'd living in this dive, sucking up to hideous old mobsters, selling off furniture that didn't belong to her, and living in dread of those odd phone calls her parents made to Dillon?

"Merry Christmas." It was Jacob, already starting on her martini. Tracy thought absently that, while she was grateful for his initiative, maybe she was getting a little too predictable. She also realized that she didn't have enough cash on her to cover the drink, and Jacob was probably the only person in New York City who knew without a doubt that she was _not_ a good credit risk at the moment.

"I didn't order that," she said simply. They both knew it translated roughly to 'I can't afford that,' but Jacob was polite enough not to say anything.

"Merry Christmas," he repeated, with a knowing smile that set Tracy's teeth on edge. "It's on the house. Consider it a holiday gift from me."

Tracy had to grin. "_Well_, in that case…" She removed her coat, laying it across the bar stool next to her. "Feliz Navidad, and make it a double."

Jacob laughed, but grabbed the bottles--vodka and vermouth--to add in the extra shots. He had the good sense to stir like a civilized human being. "Here you go, partner," he said as he plunked two olives into the glass and handed it to her.

"Don't call me that," she muttered, taking a long sip. Oh, gawd, it tasted good after the day she'd had. Christmas on a Budget was not Tracy's forte, but Dillon hadn't seemed to mind. He'd loved Radio City--another piece of furniture in hock--and had thrilled to the enormous Christmas tree and the window displays at FAO Shwartz. He hadn't even seemed to mind that, this time, they didn't actually _buy_ any of the toys.

Tracy wondered again how they'd managed to switch her child at birth, and who this changeling boy of hers actually belonged to.

"I'm surprised you're open," she said to Jacob, playing with the olive. "It being Christmas and all…" Oddly enough, Tracy didn't particularly care for olives in their natural state. She picked them feverishly from Greek salads, off sandwiches, wherever they lurked in restaurant menus.

But pickle them in enough martini? These little green babies became the height of yummy.

"Well, you know the drill--The City that never sleeps." He was pushing a bowl of pretzels her way, and Tracy couldn't decide whether he was trying to keep her from getting too drunk or whether he was worried she hadn't eaten today.

"You know, you could just close the place," she said darkly, ignoring his pretzel-pushing ways. "Who wants a bunch of depressing drunks hanging around on Christmas?" She took another sip of her martini, mentally counting the cash in her purse and wondering if a really good buzz was worth the embarrassment of nickeling and diming her way to a second martini.

Jacob didn't say anything about the drunks and Christmas. Instead, he nodded his head in the general direction of 'outside,' which was cold and snowy and getting dark quickly. "Where were you headed, Tracy?"

"Dillon's with Zoe," she snapped. She'd gotten so tired of defending her actions. It was getting hard to keep the lies straight, and part of her really believed her parents were spying on her, trying to gather enough evidence to take Dillon away from her, plotting, with their secret calls and silent treatment, to have her declared an unfit mother.

Which, of course, she was.

'I didn't ask about Dillon," Jacob responded evenly. "You said you thought we'd be closed. Where were you headed?"

"Don't lecture…"

"Does this have anything to do with Gino Solieto?" He'd cleaned out the martini shaker and was starting on a second as he spoke.

She paled, mortified, grateful, longing. "I can't…" she started. "I don't have--"

"On the house." He poured double-shots without hesitation.

"You're my new best friend," Tracy said glumly, downing the rest of her drink in preparation for the next one.

"Sometimes I think I'm your only friend." He was gazing at her thoughtfully as he mixed the drink. "You still didn't answer my question. Where were you going?"

"For a walk, okay?" In truth, Tracy hadn't known where she was going. Dillon, exhausted from his big day, had practically passed out ten seconds after they got home. Suddenly the gutted penthouse felt hateful and claustrophobic to her. She'd called Zoe, hoping against hope to find her available and almost bolted from the penthouse when the young woman arrived to watch Dillon.

"A walk? In _this_ weather?"

"I know," she said, taking the drink he offered with a nod of thanks. "I hate the snow." It was a lie. "I usually Christmas someplace warm, at the beach--Nassau, Bermuda, the Greek Isles." Another lie. She craved a Port Charles Christmas more than her next breath of air, raucous and complicated, jockeying for position and engaging in that noblest of all holiday traditions--buying her family's love.

Can't buy much love when you're $1.2 million dollars in debt, she thought, setting the glass down hard on the bar. "No chance of a sun-tanned New Year for me," she said.

Jacob shot her anther one of his damnedable sympathetic looks and nudged the pretzel bowl at her again. "Eat something," he said.

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat something, or you're getting a bill for the two drinks."

"You said they were on the house!"

He grinned widely. "You see a manger around here to complain to?" He nodded at the pretzels, and Tracy grimaced, making a big show of taking a single pretzel and eating it. When it was gone, she shrugged, her hands upturned in an "are you satisfied" gesture. "There were _two_ martinis, Tracy," he reminded her.

"Jacob…"

"Two martinis, two pretzels, and I'm letting you off easy."

She groaned and snagged another pretzel, letting it dangle from her finger as she held it on display before biting it fiercely. "There. Happy?"

There was a long silence, and Jacob shook his head. "Not really. Not at all, actually." He took a pretzel and popped it into his mouth, leaning forward on his elbows as he ate. "Christmas," he said, as if that said it all.

Tracy blinked in incomprehension before it dawned on her what he was talking about. Christmas. His wife and kid. She said nothing for a moment, wondering absently what time of year it had been--although, there was no really good time to see your son and wife die in an explosion intended for you. "Yeah, Christmas," she said softly, thinking of what she'd lost, so overwhelming and frightening and all-consuming.

How it seemed _almost_ frivolous compared to what he'd lost. She knew she'd never recover if anything like that happened to Dillon or Ned. She knew she'd simply hollow out, lose all strength and passion and hope, until the slightest breeze could turn her to dust.

She took another pretzel without being ordered to, and ate it silently.

"You know, you'd don't get a free martini for every pretzel you eat."

Tracy flashed him a flirtatious smile. "Really?" she asked innocently. "And I was just about to ask you for a larger bowl."

"Well, the pretzels I can manage." He made a show of going for the bag, then laughed when she stopped him. "Yeah, I thought so."

She watched him behind the bar, doing all those mysterious bartenderly things that always seemed to get more fascinating the longer she drank. "Isn't your--what's her name--?"

"Angie?"

"Yeah. Isn't your Angie upset with you for working on Christmas? Surely you have some quaint, dewy-eyed lovers' holiday you could be enjoying…"

"As opposed to watching you get hammered on free martinis?"

"You offered," she reminded him as she popped another olive in her mouth, followed by another pretzel. They were starting to grow on her.

"Actually," Jacob said. "She wanted me to have this time to…well…"

"Sit in an empty bar? Not get tips? Wipe down the counters?"

"Be alone." His eyes didn't meet hers as he wiped absently at a perfectly clean spot on the bar. "It's been years, and most of the time, I'm fine. But Christmastime…"

She put her hand over his, knowing instinctively that neither of them was up to a maudlin dissertation about loss, grief, and holiday depression. "Yeah," she said, putting as much compassion as she could into those brief syllables. "Christmastime…"

"It helps to have some quiet time." He was talking more to himself than to her. "To feel it, down in your gut, to wallow if need be, then to let it go."

Tracy stiffened, realizing that's just what she'd intended from the start--to wander off, alone, to feel sorry for herself, to place blame, to wallow in the unfairness of it all. She allowed herself a brief moment of self-loathing for her weakness, for her self-indulgence. Wallowing was _not_ an acceptable activity for a Quartermaine, even a worthless, banished, flat-broke Quartermaine like her. When she spoke, it was with an overabundance of cheer, too bright, as she pushed herself back from the bar. "And here I am intruding on your privacy with my insatiable cravings for pretzels." She gave him what she hoped was a dazzling smile, grabbed her coat, and started for the door.

Jacob's hand was on her shoulder before her foot even hit the floor. "Tracy, wait--I wasn't trying to drive you away."

"No, really, I've got--"

"Please stay." His hand moved down until his fingers were wrapped in hers, dark against light, large against slender. He held it softly, but with determination, like he really wanted her to stay.

Tracy was torn. Part of her, a big part of her, wanted to sprint towards that door, out into the night, into the safety and anonymity of the cold, unfeeling city. But another part, the part that held her there, that made her put down her jacket again, that part couldn't help feel how warm his hand was, how gentle it felt.

How good it felt to have human contact, a bit of kindness on a cold night.

Jacob couldn't truly fathom what was going on in her life. She hadn't given him the whole story--nobody really knew the truth about what had happened in Port Charles, and why her family didn't return her calls.

But she couldn't truly fathom what was going on in his life, either. She hadn't seen her family die so gruesomely, hadn't lived with that pain for years, somehow finding the strength to get up in the morning, to keep going on, to keep on living.

That he could extend even this simple generosity to her, considering the con she'd tried to pull on him, humbled and shamed her. That he knew at least part of her secret, and still let her maintain her dignity…

"Maybe a little while longer," she said as she sat. She smiled at him, grateful that she didn't have to put on too much of a front with him, that he knew enough for her to relax. Being strong and appearing confident all the time was starting to wear on her.

"Good," he said, grabbing a glass, filling it with ice, and pouring himself a soda. "It's not such a bad idea to be open today." He reached behind him, grabbing a stool and pulling it to his side of the bar. Sitting down opposite her, he added, "It's just too hard for people like us to go through alone."

Tracy gave him a hard look. Free martinis were one thing, but Quartermaines did not _do_ pity. "Excuse me? People like us?"

"Who can't afford to Christmas at the beach," he clarified, lifting his glass in toast.

Tracy smiled slowly, her eyes lowering as she lifted her martini glass, almost empty, to clink against his glass. "To Christmas at the Beach."

The End

Written for the lj user"100situations" Challenge.


	20. 018 True

**Title:** True to the Blood  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #18 True  
**Word Count:** 2,376 words  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** Tracy's conversation with Robert doesn't reveal all that's going on inside of her.  
**Author's Notes:** From the 7/11/06 episode. Tracy and Robert's last scene together, outside Kelly's, seemed incomplete to me. So, um, I finished it.

She found Robert outside of Kelly's just where he'd said he'd meet her. She didn't like the place, honestly, and avoided it as much as possible. Too many memories there, too many people she'd rather avoid. Tracy paused, looking in the window, horrified to see her son's soon-to-be ex-wife slow dancing with none other than Lorenzo Alcazar's felonious offspring. Wow. It just got better and better. She rolled her eyes, turning to Robert with a look of disgust on her face. "Oh! Ugh. I never thought I'd see the day that I would wish Dillon was back with Georgie. How did it go with Lulu?"

Robert shrugged. He looked worse than she felt, which was pretty bad. Of course, he'd been roped into playing surrogate daddy to Lulu while her father was out saving the British Tart from…well, whatever it was this week. Robert waited for her to sit. "Well, she's just like her dad. Talks up a ton, but it's all a crock."

"Oh, did she tell you it's okay? It's just a _hookup_?" Tracy's sarcasm was of the cut-with-a knife variety.

"Yeah. Well, we're all real cool with the whole thing," Robert said with equal derision. Tracy found herself grateful for his cynicism. It made the whole thing feel a little more…sane. "Yeah, Lulu's fallen hard for your boy. Any chance he's ever going to return those feelings?"

"Ha, ha! No. I'm afraid he's still in love with Little Miss What's Her Name in the other room. It hasn't registered with him that he's about to break Lulu's heart."

Robert cast her a knowing look, that annoying one he got when he was absolutely sure he had her figured out. "Oh, Sparks, who'd have thought you are such a romantic?"

Tracy bristled at his familiarity. Just because he'd helped her out with this Dillon/Lulu thing didn't give him the right to think they were friends. Or whatever. He was still an arrogant SOB who was far too impressed with himself. "I'm just trying to protect my family. The last thing we need is another nasty scandal."

It was obvious to her that Robert didn't buy her words.

For what it was worth, Tracy wasn't sure she bought them, either. She'd been spouting the party line for so long it was beginning to sound hollow to her.

_I'm just trying to protect my family._

My family hates me, she thought to herself.

_The last thing we need is another nasty scandal._

Scandal is what makes us tick, she thought to herself.

Robert, noticing her silence, nudged her slightly. "They're good kids, you know."

Tracy smiled, a sad kind of smile, and nodded. "That's the worst of it, you know. That they _are_ good kids. If they weren't, it would be easier. We could just crack their skulls together, ship them off to boarding school, do _something_ to shut down this nonsense." She sighed, resting her chin on her hand. It was nice out tonight, warm with a gentle breeze. It was rare for Tracy to spend much time out of doors anymore—all her life seemed to be board rooms and living rooms and in the car to and from wherever she had to go.

She would have liked to enjoy this summer night, talking to an attractive man who at least pretended to get her.

"I so didn't sign on for this," she muttered with a slight laugh.

"You? Hey, at least one of them's your own kid." Robert winked at her. "I'm nobody's daddy in this situation, and I'm stuck just as much as you."

"Well, that's what you get for letting my darling husband slip through your fingers." Tracy flashed him an insincere grin, then shook her head. "You know the worst part of this? The absolute worst part? I can't even hate Lulu. I want to. I want to just…" She sighed, brushing her fingers through her hair. "Dillon's my son. It's my job to defend him, especially against predatory blondes who want to…hook up."

"Definitely a mother thing," Robert said. He was watching her, his blue eyes intent, as if he were trying to unravel a mystery. "You like Lulu, don't you?"

"She has a certain…style," Tracy said noncommittally. She might risk opening up to her son, but this was an outsider. This was a man with more schemes than dollars in the bank, and frankly, she didn't want to reveal her innermost thoughts to a man quite capable of using them against her at a moment's notice. "She's definitely got spirit."

"She's in love with him."

"I know."

"He's not in love with her."

That cut Tracy, for some reason, to hear it so bluntly stated. "I know…" God, how did this happen? Dillon, of all people? She shielded herself, trying to keep her face neutral, as it hit her again. Dillon.

"It's not your fault," he whispered, putting his hand over hers.

She shot him an angry look. "Of course it's not my fault! Whatever would make you even suggest such a thing?" But even as the words were coming out of her mouth, she knew that it was guilt she was feeling. She'd tried so hard, struggled so hard, to keep him gentle, to keep him kind…

"I wasn't suggesting anything, Sparky." He pulled his hand back, assuming that grating persona he got—the laid-back Aussie good-old-boy thing. "It's just that, when something like this happens, it's normal for the parents to start…well, you know, second guessing themselves. Wondering what they might have done wrong, that sent their kids down this path…."

"What I did wrong was not sending them both to boarding school the second Lulu arrived at our house." But she knew that wasn't true. Lulu didn't need boarding school. Tracy had threatened both Lulu and Dillon, of course, but there was no way she was going to subject either of them to that fate. She thought back with revulsion at her own incarceration, and knew she could never do it to kids she loved.

"Dillon's a good kid…."

"Why do you keep saying that? Why would you ever feel the need to tell me something you know I already know?"

"You have this look…like you're not certain anymore."

Tracy drew in a deep breath, wondering just what they _had_ taught him in Spy School. She didn't want to discuss this with him anymore. She wanted to go home and take a hot bath. She wanted to scrub this day off of her.

"I'm sure this whole thing must be reminding you…"

"Don't—" She knew instinctively what he was going after, and she wasn't going to give it to him. He didn't have the right to go there; he didn't have the right to bring this up with her. "Robert…"

"I mean, the similarities between what happened with Paul—"

"This is nothing like what happened with Paul, and I don't want to discuss it with you anymore." She slammed the chair back from the table, pushing away and turning to leave.

Robert was unfazed by her actions and easily kept pace with her as she walked away from Kelly's towards where she'd parked her car. "You know, you won't be able to deal with this with all that baggage cluttering things up."

"You leave your damned hands off my baggage," she snarled, waving him off as he tried to put his hand on her arm. "Keep your damned hands off of me!"

He quickened his pace, stepping in front of her and effectively blocking her path. When she tried to dart around him, he grabbed both her shoulders, holding her in place. "You mean to tell me it hasn't occurred to you that maybe this little scenario has been played out before? That maybe it's the same old story with a new cast of characters?" He didn't let her look away, held her eyes as he continued. "Boy loves girl. Boy loses girl. Boy finds sexual gratification with another girl, whom he doesn't love, the tough little girl who pretends not to care but gets the wind knocked out of her when boy goes back to girl he really loves?"

"It's not the same at all…" But she knew that she was lying. She knew that all of this was cutting just a little too close to home, and that her anger with Dillon wasn't so much for the pseudo-incestuous nature of his liaison, but for the callous way he was using a girl who was obviously in love with him. "Oh, god," she whispered as her breath just went away. Just like that, she couldn't breathe, it hit her so hard. Tracy shut her eyes hard, trying to block out the picture of him.

Robert pulled her in to him, wrapping her in a warm, if unsolicited embrace. "Right now, we're all they've got, Trace. We can't let our own crap get in the way of helping them."

"When he was a little boy, I used to watch him sleep." She didn't know where it was coming from, or why she was letting it come out. She just talked. "I used to search his little face, knowing he couldn't hide himself when he was sleeping, knowing I'd see his true nature."

"Searching for signs of Paul…"

She nodded. "I was so sure, so absolutely sure that he was safe. That I'd raised a young man who would respect and care about women. That I'd taught him…" She swallowed, unable to finish the sentence. "Tonight, when he was talking, all I could see was Paul Hornsby. It was like his father was superimposed over him, all smug and self-assured, safe and secure in the knowledge that he was absolutely in the right. That he'd done nothing wrong. So willing to place blame, so unwilling to accept the responsibility for his part in what went wrong." She pushed out of Robert's arms, wrapping her own arms across her chest as she turned away. The night was getting cooler. "He wouldn't even _consider_ Lulu's feelings. Robert, how did I raise a kid like that? How did he ever get to this place where he can be so selfish?"

"Lulu assures me that kids today have completely different feelings about sex. That's it's all about hooking up, and friendship, and nothing more."

"Bullshit."

"Oh, absolutely," he agreed, rubbing her shoulders against the cool breeze. "Because of course, we know nothing about sex."

"Or what it was like to be teenagers."

Robert laughed. "Yeah, Lulu thought my concepts on sex were positively Victorian. Were we that obnoxious when we were their age?"

"Yes," Tracy said. "In my case, anyway." She sighed, patting his hand on her arm. "And I was just as callous to my first lover as Dillon is to Lulu."

"And I'm willing to bet that Lulu is just as infatuated with Dillon as I pretended _not_ to be with Penelope Alton."

Tracy had to laugh. "_Penelope Alton?_

"First girl I ever made love to. We were so sophisticated, like a French film. It was just physical, right?" He laughed at a memory that appeared to be playing before his eyes. "I was crushed when she decided to be _sophisticated_ with one of my rivals instead. Yeah, it was just about sex."

"Mine was Chester Franklin. He worked in the mailroom at ELQ and was a very worldly 19 to my almost 17."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "Precocious little thing, weren't you?"

"Well, Robert, girls often are." She smiled, remembering Chester for the first time in ages. "He was sweet, and more than willing to rid me of my pesky virginity. And for a while, he didn't seem to mind risking not only getting fired, but possibly arrested as well."

"Yeah, funny how we didn't really care all that much about statutory rape, huh?"

"Eventually, I dumped him for someone more appropriate. I knew from the start he was just, well, a training lover." She closed her eyes. "But even so, I couldn't help fantasizing…dreaming…" She looked at her friend, frowning slightly. "There's no such thing as casual sex, is there?"

"Glaringly false advertising," Robert agreed.

"She's not faking it, is she?"

"No more than you were with Chester Whatsisname."

"Oh, god, he's going to break her heart." Tracy thought about her son, her bright kid, her best boy, the one she tried so hard with. He was going to break this girl's heart, just like his father had broken her heart, just like his son would someday break some new girl's heart. Was it just the Hornsby in him, or were all men genetically disposed to cruelty?

"Maybe we'll be lucky," Robert said, but he didn't look like he gave it much of a chance.

"Maybe we'll just have to bust it up," she corrected, steeling herself. Dillon may be a true Hornsby, but she was a true Quartermaine. If she couldn't appeal to his reason, his decency, she'd have to fall back on the tried and true.

She'd have to be a mother to him. And to pray that she could minimize the damage to this girl she had grown rather fond of. "Why couldn't he have had an inappropriate sexual relationship with some bimbo I didn't know?" she griped as Robert put her arm in his, walking her the rest of the way to her car. "A bimbo I could destroy and not give it a second thought."

"Luke would be really annoyed if you destroyed his little bimbo princess…."

"Leave him out of this," Tracy said as she got to her door and began fishing for her keys. Robert took them when she got them in her hands and opened her door for her. "I'm still looking for a way to blame him for all of this."

"You'll find it, I'm sure." He closed the door after her, leaning in as she opened the window between them. "You gonna be okay, Sparky?"

She smiled, grateful he'd been there, and grateful he was going to be there to help with the grim task of destroying yet _another_ one of her sons' relationships. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Just be prepared, Scorpio." She turned the key and started the car. "Because this is going to get very ugly."

The End

Written for the 100 Situations Challenge.


	21. 019 Crazy

**Title:** Session Three  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: ** #19 Crazy  
**Word Count: ** 3,922 words  
**Rating: ** PG  
**Summary: ** Tracy must meet with a therapist for six sessions after minor traffic stop turns ugly.  
**Author's Notes: ** Tracy in therapy. Come on--it had to be done.

**Case Number:** NY06432/LG/TLQ745  
**Client Name:** Quartermaine (Spencer), Tracy Lila  
**Terms:** NYS/DIST2JUD/6S/AM  
**Dx:** Low self-esteem, emotional/psychological distress, unresolved grief  
**Treatment Plan:** Combination cognitive/behavioral therapy, stressing positive reinforcement/associations, social/emotional skills training, behavior modification, anger management.  
**Date:** 4/25/2006  
**Auth. Sig.:** Jane Marsters, PhD/dab/transc.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT  
SESSION THREE

JM: Hello, Tracy. How are you today?

TQ: Here.

JM: You're late.

TQ: I have a life.

JM: I see. Well, let's get started. We have a lot to cover, and we don't want to get behind.

TQ: If you say so.

JM: Please try to be on time for the rest of the sessions, will you?

TQ: You betcha!

Note To File: Client seems very distracted, heavy on sarcasm.

JM: Why were you late today, Tracy? Did something happen to delay you?

TQ: It was hard getting away from the office, okay?

JM: Have you told your family yet about these sessions?

TQ: HA! Uh…no.

JM: Tracy…

TQ: Look, Doctor, we've discussed this before. In fact, we've discussed this every time I've seen you. What my family doesn't know won't hurt me.

JM: Are you afraid they'll hurt you if they find out you're in therapy?

TQ: I said "won't hurt them," not me.

JM: Actually, you said, "What my family doesn't know won't hurt me." We can review the tape, if you want to be sure.

TQ: No, I do not want to review the tape. Why do we have to tape these sessions anyway? You're scribbling notes like a crazy woman. We don't need to have this recorded.

JM: We've discussed this before, Tracy. You don't need to worry about the tapes. It's for documentation purposes only. Nobody's going to hear them except me and my transcriptionist.

Note To File: Client expressed visible discomfort at the mention of a transcriptionist.

JM: Tracy, you're privacy is protected by doctor-patient privilege.

TQ: You are extremely naïve if you think it takes anything more than a thick pair of boots to walk right through doctor-patient privilege.

JM: You say this from experience?

TQ: I'm not saying anything.

Note To File: Client has set herself stiffly on the couch. Her face is calm, but she evidences nervousness in her body language--arms folded across chest, foot tapping, sitting straight up.

JM: Well, I'm sorry if you feel you can't open up with me completely. But you do know that the terms of your sentence require you to participate fully in these sessions.

TQ: I'll answer any question you ask.

JM: Truthfully?

JM: Well, Doctor, truth is a very subjective thing, isn't it? And isn't your job supposed to be determining what's true and what's BS?

JM: Touche. Tell me something, Tracy. When you left here last time, we seemed to be establishing a certain degree of trust between us. Today, however, we seem to be back at square one. What happened between then and now? Was there any significant event during that time period?

TQ: Nothing much, really. I had a birthday party.

JM: Well! Happy birthday, Tracy. Tell me about the party.

Note To File: Client seems reluctant to discuss the party.

TQ: It was just a party.

JM: What type of party? Informal? Formal? An intimate gathering of friends, or lots of people?

TQ: A surprise party, okay? My no-good husband found out it was my birthday, wrapped up a bunch of things from around the house, and blackmailed my family members into showing up.

JM: I see…

TQ: Of course, he did have a cake made.

Note To File: This is the first time client smiles while relating this event.

JM: What sort of cake?

TQ: laughs Just a cake, really. A huge birthday cake, with yellow icing flowers on top and my name written on it in icing.

JM: Sounds like somebody went to a lot of trouble to make that cake.

TQ: Not a lot of trouble to pick up a phone. laughs Luke made me put my own candles on, being as nobody but me, God, and my father knows how old I actually am.

JM: Was Edward there?

Note To File: Immediate reaction from the client at the mention of her father's name. Reference Session Two, line 70-93 for background on Edward Quartermaine.

TQ: Daddy was out of town.

JM: Was he really out of town, Tracy, or did he just not attend?

TQ: Who remembers?

JM: It was less than two weeks ago.

Note To File: Client is visibly agitated by this line of questioning.

TQ: Look, he wasn't there, okay? I don't know if Luke invited him or not. I didn't ask, and he didn't tell. Like the Army, you know?

JM: Okay, let's move on from Edward. Why do you think Luke threw you that party?

TQ: Who knows why Luke does anything he does. He was bored, probably. Or maybe he just liked the idea of forcing my family to be nice to me.

JM: Were your sons there?

TQ: Reluctantly.

JM: Your brother, Alan?

TQ: Yeah, yeah. It was a regular Quartermaine Family Reunion. We had tee-shirts made. Everybody showed up.

JM: Except your father.

Note To File: Client des not respond verbally to this. Glares at me.

JM: Has anyone ever thrown you a surprise party before?

TQ: No.

JM: How did it make you feel to have a party like this thrown in your honor?

Note To File: Client appears to be considering this question. She smiles and relaxes before answering.

TQ: You know, even though I knew the guests were there under duress, it felt kind of good. It was sweet of Luke to go through the trouble, no matter why he did it. And for a little while, nobody was fighting.

JM: So, are things getting better between you and Luke? Last week, you were telling me--

TQ: You can't judge Luke this week by anything I said last week. He runs hot and cold, and cycles faster than Lance Armstrong. I never know how things are between Luke and me. One day, we're hot, next day, cold. Then he disappears for a few weeks and comes back with a boatload of dram right behind him.

JM: What about the kiss you told me about last week…

TQ: The almost kiss…

JM: Back in March. You said you thought he might be developing feelings for you.

TQ: I was obviously drunk at the time.

Note To File: Client is obviously being sarcastic, but I decide to follow the thread. See Session One, lines 94-150 for background on family alcohol use.

JM: Were you drinking when you came to our last session?

TQ: Now, Doctor! Would I attend a court-mandated therapy session while under the influence of alcohol? Never. 'Course, on the other hand, with years of residual alcohol lingering in my bloodstream, who knows what's possible?

JM: Would you say you've been drinking more lately than usual?

Note To File: Client shrugs; does not answer question.

JM: Would you say you drink to excess?

TQ: I try to do everything fun to excess…

JM: Is drinking fun, Tracy?

TQ: And here comes the part where you try to convince me that I have a drinking problem. Come on, Doctor. I thought I was here because I threatened a stupid traffic cop, not for getting drunk.

JM: First of all, I didn't bring up alcohol. You did. I just followed your lead. Second, excessive alcohol use can affect your moods, even when you're not actively drinking. Behavior has its roots in chemical and physical causes, as well as psychological causes. It's our job during these sessions to identify the triggers that cause your rages, and try to find ways for you diffuse them in a healthy way.

TQ: Ha-ha! You're gonna need more than six session to diffuse all my triggers.

JM: Well, you're only obligated to attend six sessions. If you want to continue afterwards, you're welcome to stay on as a private client.

TQ: My, my, aren't we the little ambulance chaser? Great way to drum up business, Doctor, trolling for nutcases in Cell Block C.

JM: You know, aggression is often a surface expression for fear. What are you afraid of, Tracy?

TQ: I'm not afraid of anything.

JM: Not even your father?

TQ: Especially not my father.

JM: Do you drink more when Edward is home?

TQ: I believe that's called "leading the witness," Your Honor.

JM: You're not on trial here. I'm just asking questions.

TQ: You're insinuating.

JM: What am I insinuating?

TQ: That all of this, the "incident" with the cop, can be traced back to my relationship with my father.

JM: Do you believe that?

TQ: It's so trite. So simplistic. Perhaps it's arrogant of me, but I'd like to imagine that I'm more complex than just "oooh, Daddy doesn't love me."

JM: Of course you're more complex than that. We're all extremely complex individuals, each in our own way. But sometimes we can find the roots of our anxieties in our relationships with those closest to us--our parents, our offspring, our spouses and lovers…

TQ: Well, my spouse definitely doesn't help my anxiety. Luke Spencer is the bane of my existence.

JM: He threw you a surprise party.

TQ: Too little, too late.

JM: So. Your husband is the root of your anxiety?

TQ: Root, stem, branches, and all the little bitty leaves.

JM: So why do you stay with him?

Note To File: Client takes a long time to answer this question.

TQ: I don't know.

JM: Do you have any theories?

TQ: He makes me laugh. He keeps me on my toes. My family hates him, which is always a plus.

JM: Why did you threaten that traffic cop, Tracy?

TQ: Wow. Talk about an abrupt transition.

JM: It's a simple question. According to the report, you were "verbally abusive" and threatened the officer physically.

TQ: I was having a bad day. Anyway, if this had happened in my county, well, the officer would have known better to take me seriously.

JM: Do you have "bad days" often, would you say?

Note To File: This gets laughter out of the client.

JM: What's so funny about that question, Tracy?

TQ: Well, you just asked me if I'm always a bitch. And before you start turning it around to sound politically correct, yes, I am a bitch. Most of the time. That's why this whole therapy thing is absurd. I don't need anger management therapy. I need a good stiff martini and to be left the hell alone.

JM: Are you angry, Tracy?

TQ: Hell, yes, I'm angry. Everybody's angry. Look around you, Doctor. It's an epidemic. The whole world is angry. I'm angry. You're angry.

JM: What makes you think I'm angry?

TQ: You're breathing.

JM: Do you think it's possible that some people out there are not angry?

TQ: No.

JM: But there are plenty of people who would tell you that they're not angry at all, that they're perfectly happy with their lives.

TQ: Liars or fools. Everybody is angry. Everybody is outraged. I get in trouble for it because I'm honest. I don't sugar-coat, I don't repress, and I certainly don't make nice with dumb jerk cops who pull you over for breezing through a yellow light in some podunk town on the way to Manhattan.

JM: Tell me something, Tracy. Can you visualize a world without anger? Without this all-pervasive rage you describe?

Note To File: Client considers before answering.

TQ: Nope. Not for a second.

JM: Do you think anger is integral?

TQ: To the world? Or just to human beings?

JM: Either.

TQ: Yes. To both. I think anger is crucial. Do you think man harnessed fire because he was happy? No, our ancestors learned to use fire because they were pissed off. They were tired of eating raw meat, tired of freezing to death during the night, tired of starving and dying because they couldn't survive the winter.

JM: So anger is necessary.

TQ: Did I fail the test?

JM: There's no test, Tracy. And no, you wouldn't have failed, even if it were a test. I agree with you, at least in part. Anger is a vital and important human emotion. It spurs us on, keeps us from being victimized, forces us to keep pushing against intolerable situations.

TQ: Damn. If I failed, I'd go to jail and not have to come to these sessions.

JM: You know, your family would notice if you went to jail.

TQ: So?

JM: You're telling me your family would accept your serving jail time before they would accept you going to therapy?

TQ: Sad, but true.

JM: Why do you think that's true?

TQ: Because.

JM: Because why?

TQ: Because it's a sign of weakness. Because it's self-indulgent, and weak, and pathetic in a way my family would never tolerate. Besides, laughter, I know too much. In a jail cell, I can't tell all their dirty little secrets.

JM: I see.

TQ: Next to anger, paranoia is a Quartermaine's best friend.

JM: Are you paranoid, Tracy?

TQ: Absolutely.

JM: About what?

TQ: About getting cheated out of what's mine. About my sons, bless their clueless hearts, saddling themselves with the wrong women. Basic stuff, really.

JM: How does this paranoia affect your life?

TQ: I do fine. I'm used to it.

JM: Does it ever tire you? Being so angry and paranoid?

TQ: Quartermaines don't get tired, Doctor.

JM: Let me guess. That would be considered a weakness.

TQ: Give that woman a prize.

JM: So let me see if I have this down. The accepted norm for a typical Quartermaine is to be strong, angry and paranoid.

TQ: That about sums it up.

JM: Haven't you ever just wanted to be weak, happy and naïve? Just for a time?

TQ: People who think that way don't last long in my family.

JM: Was that the problem with your earlier husbands? Could they just not bear up under the pressure of living up to the Quartermaine standard?

TQ: Actually, at least with the first three, what they couldn't bear was the pressure of having to have sex with me when they really wanted to be having sex with someone else.

JM: And husband number four?

TQ: He couldn't bear up under the pressure of u really /u athletic sex. He died of an aneurysm while consummating our marriage.

JM: That must have been terribly traumatic for you.

TQ: Oh, it was. It was even more traumatic for the poor ex-hooker I hired to take my place.

JM: You hired a hooker to sleep with your husband?

TQ: Ex-hooker. And u I /u certainly didn't want to sleep with him. Besides, she owed me a favor. Either way, he never knew the difference. Trust me, Gino died a very happy man.

JM: So you sent a proxy to your marriage bed. Isn't that just like what you told me Luke did to you with Coleman last summer?

TQ: Wow. You really keep track of every little detail, don't you?

JM: It's my job. Do you think sending the hooker--

TQ: Ex-hooker.

JM: Sending the ex-hooker to Gino's bed might have affected the way you responded to Coleman? Do you think that maybe there was a little guilt, or sympathy, at play when you decided to stay with him?

TQ: Um, the man had a 10-inch penis and wasn't afraid to get creative with it. That's why I decided to stay with Coleman.

Note To File: I must admit, this caught me off guard. The next pause in the tape is mine.

JM: So it was the sex?

TQ: It was absolutely the sex.

JM: You chose a sexual relationship with Coleman over a non-sexual relationship with your husband?

TQ: Wouldn't you? Besides, I tried to do the right thing. I offered Luke his divorce u and /u his alimony. He refused.

JM: Why do you think he refused?

TQ: I don't know. I guess he didn't want to lose.

JM: You said the marriage was all about the money. By offering him his freedom and the money, you were letting him win.

TQ: Yeah. I know. That's what makes me crazy, Doctor. He had the chance to leave, to win, and he dug his heels in and wouldn't budge.

JM: It seems to me you both have had several opportunities to leave the marriage, but didn't.

TQ: Yeah…

JM: Is it possible you both want something more than you're admitting to? Both of you have had the chance to "win," and you've let it pass. Why do you think that is, Tracy?

TQ: Because we're both masochists? laughter I don't know, Doctor. I really don't.

JM: How does Luke bear up under the Quartermaine standard?

TQ: laughs He thrives on thumbing his nose at it. He gets off on being the most boorish, lazy, useless freeloader that ever crossed our threshold. It amuses him no end to see Daddy and Alan go all purple in the face.

JM: Do you ever wish you could do the same thing?

TQ: Well, not the u same /u thing. But I have to admit, it's refreshing to be around a man who doesn't crawl for Daddy. Who isn't even a little intimidated by him.

JM: Could that be interpreted as a kind of strength?

TQ: Yeah…Luke definitely has more spine than any of my other husbands did.

JM: How do you respond when he acts out? Are you equally scornful of his actions, or are you…

TQ: Whatever he does, I am responsible for. He's my husband, so as far as my family is concerned, all his bad behavior is my fault.

JM: Does that bother you? Or do you enjoy sharing in his notoriety?

TQ: Well….sometimes. Sometimes not.

Note To File: Client thinks a while about this before continuing.

TQ: Are you saying that I keep Luke around so that I can act out against my family vicariously through him?

JM: Does that strike a chord with you?

TQ: pause I guess. I mean, he wouldn't be the first inappropriate man I've been with.

JM: Let me ask this another way, Tracy. How do you feel when Luke acts out against your father? When he and Alan turn, as you put it, "purple in the face"?

Note To File: Long pause while client considers this. When she speaks, her voice is very soft.

TQ: Happy. I feel ridiculously happy, in the most immature way imaginable. I u love /u watching him stick it to Alan and Daddy. I love watching them get furious, being completely unable to bully him or bribe him or reason with him into conforming to their rules.

JM: Are you maybe just a little proud of him?

TQ: Yeah, maybe. Just a little.

JM: Do you conform to the rules, Tracy?

TQ: Not always.

JM: What happens when you don't follow the rules, Tracy?

TQ: I get banished.

JM: How many times have you been banished?

TQ: Three times.

JM: It's okay, Tracy. It's okay.

Note To File: Client has begun to cry softly.

JM: What happens when you're banished, sweetie?

TQ: I'm cut off. Emotionally, financially… The last time, even Mother wouldn't take my calls.

JM: That must have hurt you very much.

TQ: Mother u always /u took my calls. She always backed me up, just a little. But that time…

JM: It's okay, Tracy.

TQ: I always did what he taught me to do. I fought to win, I played dirty, I tried to beat him at his own game. I just never…

JM: Never what?

TQ: I never won. And losing is worse than being weak. Losing is worse than anything. When I lost, I got banished.

JM: So you were banished not only for playing dirty, but for losing?

TQ: Mostly for losing. If I had won, Daddy wouldn't have had the power to banish me.

JM: I know I'm sounding like a broken record, here. I keep asking you how you feel because I want you to be aware of your emotions, Tracy. If you can learn to recognize your emotions as they happen, learn to understand them and what's beneath them, you can gain a certain control over them. Anger is good, Tracy, when you have mastery over it. Anger can be a sword in your hand, to defend yourself against the unfairness of life.

TQ: Life is definitely not fair…

JM: How did you feel, Tracy? When your mother wouldn't take your calls? When you were banished, and expected her to back you, and she didn't?

TQ: Angry?

JM: Angry.

TQ: No…not angry.

JM: Take your time.

TQ: Alone. I felt alone. I always feel alone, even when I'm surrounded by people. Even when I'm making love, or sitting in on board meetings, or getting drunk at a party. But that time in New York, when I was so broke, when I was so deep in debt…Gawd, Jane, it was the most awful time of my life. If it weren't for Dillon…

JM: What?

TQ: I don't know how I wouldn't have gone on. I guess I would have just drunk myself into an early grave and be done with it.

JM: Is that true?

TQ: laughs Nah, probably not. Even without Dillon, I'm too much of a Quartermaine to get suicidal. I would have just been more ruthless, less careful trying to get back on top. Having a kid slowed me down a bit…but, it was worth it. Having Dillon there…well, for a little bit of time, I had unconditional love.

JM: Felt nice, didn't it?

TQ: Yeah.

JM: Well, I hate to do this, Tracy, but our time is just about up.

TQ: Wait--I didn't tell you how the party ended.

JM: Okay, we have a minute or two, unless you want to pick this up next time?

TQ: It won't take long.

JM: All right. You told me about the presents, and your family, and the cake. What next?

TQ: I started to cut the cake, and my niece's mobster boyfriend showed up and ruined everything.

Note To File: Client is relating this calmly, without anger or apparent distress, as if discussing a film or a grocery list.

JM: Really?

TQ: Yup. Showed up, sent Alan into a raging fit, and effectively ended the party before it began.

JM: That's awful.

TQ: To be honest? It was still one of the best birthdays I've ever had. How sad is that, huh?

JM: Not sad at all, if you felt okay about it.

TQ: The guests scattered, Alice put away the cake (we had it for dessert at supper that night), and that was about it.

JM: What did you do?

TQ: I went to my bedroom.

JM: Alone?

Note To File: Client laughed at this, shaking her head.

TQ: Yeah, alone. That part of the marriage hasn't changed.

JM: Do you want it to?

TQ: Weren't we out of time? laughter

JM: It's okay. We still have three sessions to go. We're gonna cross this bridge sooner or later, Tracy.

TQ: Later. Please. Life with my husband is already complicated enough. I don't think I'm ready yet to go there.

JM: We'll get there, Tracy. And trust me, you'll be stronger for facing it.

TQ: I hope so. Week after next?

JM: Week after next. See Carol out in the front office to set up your time. Thank you, Tracy. I really appreciate your opening up today.

TQ: Yeah. Thank you, too, Doctor.

END TRANSCRIPT

The End

Written for the 100 Situations Challenge.


	22. 020 Love

**Title:** Just Like Precious  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters:** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt:** #20 Love  
**Word Count:** 842 words  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** It's a dog's life. And sometimes, even a dog can find love in the most unexpected places.  
**Author's Notes:** Oh, the joys of creating a story around a throwaway line. Tracy was chasing the Willoughby's dog out of Lila's rose garden when she stumbled on to Dillon and Lulu in the boathouse.

There are much worse lives a dog can have. Precious Pie Willoughby, a fourth generation champion pure-blood Yorkie, was well aware of this. She'd seen other dogs in the park, she'd heard talk about kennels and fences and…dear puppy goddess on high! _chains_! So Precious was well aware of her privileged status, and never took a moment of her day for granted.

She held her head high as her human, Mrs. Willoughby, took her to be groomed, even though the other dogs in the neighborhood snickered and laughed at the bows. She learned to enjoy the carrier, with its scratchy tartan lining and little dangly bells. She even tolerated the baby talk her human insisted on speaking, although at age five, she was hardly a puppy.

All in all, Precious lived her life as an obedient and grateful pet, never sassing back or nipping at her humans, rarely barking at strangers (unless they deserved it), and for the most part, living a quiet, happy life.

There was, however, one temptation Precious could never seem to resist. Her humans lived next door to another family, the Damn-Quartermaines. According to Precious' human, Mr. Willoughby, the Damn-Quartermaines were a bunch of larcenous lushes. Precious didn't know about all that. What she did know was that the Damn-Quartermaines had an incredible rose garden. It was glorious—so many interesting smells and sounds and mucky stuff to play in. She'd first stumbled on it when the old human, Mrs. Damn-Quartermaine, had still been alive. Mrs. Damn-Quartermaine was sweet to Precious, and used to toss sticks from her rolling chair for her to chase, and always had a treat to give her, even though the Damn-Quartermaines didn't have a dog of their own.

Precious didn't really remember much about old Mrs. Damn-Quartermaine, because she'd only been a puppy when she was there. But she remembered her smell, and that was what drew her to the younger Miss Damn-Quartermaine, whom they called Misstracy. Now, Misstracy never showed up with treats, and she didn't throw a stick for Precious to chase. Usually, she called for the big human Alice to come and chase Precious off.

Misstracy started coming to the rose garden just about the time old Mrs. Damn-Quartermaine stopped. At first, all she did was sit there and cry. Precious tried to comfort her—basic dog stuff, really—nudging her calf, whining, offering her ears to be scratched. Mostly, Misstracy ignored her. But sometimes, she'd pet her, and once she even threw a stick. But then Misstracy stopped crying, and a lot of the times, she'd come out to the garden yelling at Mr. Damn-Quartermaine for one reason or another.

Precious knew to vamoose with old Mr. Damn-Quartermaine was there. She had an instinct about him.

After she stopped crying, Misstracy almost never petted her. And she never threw sticks for her to chase. She just called Alice to chase her off, or chased her off herself.

By all rights, Precious should have stopped liking Misstracy, but she didn't. First, Misstracy smelled like old Mrs. Damn-Quartermaine, and smells don't lie. There was some nice inside her, Precious knew.

Second, Precious sort of liked being chased. It was a real _dog_ thing, a gritty fun missing from her pampered life. She loved darting through the bushes, down the rows, in the dirt and under the prickly branches. It was exhilarating, and when she came back all dirty and tangled, she only laughed at Mrs. Willoughby's scolding.

Misstracy was the most fun Precious had in her long, dull days.

Besides, she knew Misstracy wasn't mean, like old Mr. Damn-Quartermaine was. Once, when Misstracy had been chasing her, Precious misjudged the distance and slammed right into one of the rose bushes. It had hurt like crazy. A lot of the thorns had gotten caught in her coat, but many had gone right through to the skin. She remembers whining, whimpering as she lay there, not wanting to move at all.

Misstracy had come to her, gently like old Mrs. Damn-Quartermaine would have. She wrapped Precious in something soft and shiny and green, the shirt she'd been wearing, and took her to the little house on the water. She spoke softly to Precious while she removed the thorns, telling her what a good dog she was, what a brave puppy she was, stroking her head as she put ointment on the cuts. And when it was done, she wrapped Precious up in a clean towel, hugged her until she stopped shaking, then carried her all the way to the Willoughby's house herself.

From that moment, Precious noticed she smelled different. There was a hint of old Mrs. Damn-Quartermaine there, yes, but mostly the smell had been unique to Misstracy. It was spicy and unusual, just a little bit sweet. Precious had memorized the smell as she lay wrapped in that towel, near this Damn-Quartermaine's heart.

It smelled like love.

After that, every once in a blue moon, Misstracy would even have a treat for her. She was pedigree, that Misstracy.

Just like Precious.

The End

Written for the 100 Situations Challenge.


	23. 021 New

**Title:** A Brief History of Humanity  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: ** #21 New  
**Word Count: ** 5,618 words  
**Rating: ** PG  
**Summary: ** Tracy celebrates New Year's Eve with her own private tradition.  
**Author's Notes: ** Okay, this is going into AU territory. According to everything I've read, the Qmaines didn't arrive in Port Charles until Alan was a resident at GH. So the flashback couldn't have happened the way it does here, since the family didn't live in Port Charles when Tracy was seventeen. I don't care. I'm running with it.

_December 31, 2005_

_The book was heavy in her hands, its leather binding cracked and faded with age. The gold-rimmed paper was onion-thin, with print so tiny and cramped it hurt her eyes more with each passing year._

_Tracy wondered, as she always did, why she subjected herself to this torture every New Year's Eve. She wasn't much of a history buff, really, and she had things to do. Appearances had to be made, this year more than ever. She listened to the staff downstairs, preparing for the family's annual New Year's party. This year, the family had to present a unified front._

_Maybe she'd read her chapter tomorrow._

_Tracy was just about to convince herself to stall--like she did every year--when she turned back to the inside front cover--like she did every year. And there it was, like it had been every year since she was seventeen, that crooked scrawl, the shaky handwriting, the simple words._

_"Tracy. I knew you'd pick this book. Thanks for pushing me off the chair. Twice. Tom."_

_It worked. Just like it had worked last year, and every year before since the first time she'd read it. Tracy sat down on the bed, rifled through her purse to find her glasses, and thumbed through the book to find this year's chapter._

December 24. Some forty odd years earlier…

"No. Way." Tracy Quartermaine scanned her reflection in the full length mirror, turning to one side, then the other, hoping against hope that perhaps at least there was one angle from which she didn't look completely atrocious. "There is no way in God's green Earth that I'm going out of the house like this."

Tracy loved her mother more than anyone in the world. And she was not above the occasional act of charity.

But this? This was unreasonable.

"Mother!"

Lila came breezing into her seventeen-year-old daughter's bedroom, her hair decorated with fake holly sprigs, her green and red dress the picture of holiday cheer. When she saw Tracy, she clapped her hands together in delight. "Oh, darling, you look adorable!"

Tracy turned slowly to face her mother, her face dark with the impenetrable haze of anger only a teenager could summon. "Mother. I am _not_ leaving the house in this thing. I refuse." She stomped her foot, only to be accosted by the unnerving sound of jingle bells as her pointy-shoed foot hit the floor. The elf costume fit her perfectly, much to her dismay, from the green felt shoes with the pointy toes and little bells, to the jagged-edged short skirt right up to the floppy hat with the big bell on the end. "I look ridiculous!"

"Now, Tracy, darling, it's not that bad. The suit looks precious on you. It fits you so well, and the children will be delighted."

"I look like a demented Tinkerbell!"

"You look like someone who could bring a lot of joy to sick little children on Christmas Eve," Lila countered.

Tracy groaned. Her mother sure knew how to turn on the guilt when she needed to. She'd spent the better part of the previous day laying it on thick, talking about the poor children, reminding Tracy how fortunate she was to have her health, the whole nine yards, until Tracy agreed to do it just to be done with the lecture.

"Mom, there has to be someone else who can do this. Someone without a social life? Someone without pride? Someone who is color blind and has no sense of fashion?"

"Tracy Lila Quartermaine, you agreed to do this!"

"Under duress," her daughter reminded her. "And nobody mentioned an elf costume, Mother. I absolutely would remember if you'd mentioned the damned elf costume."

"Language, Tracy!"

Tracy sighed, sitting on the bed to the sound of dozens of tiny jingle bells. "Look, Mom, I feel sorry for the kids. Really, I do. I mean, it must be awful being stuck in the hospital on Christmas." She lifted her arms in display. "But look at me! Please, Mother, look at me. Not through the eyes of a 40 year old, but through the eyes of someone who once was a seventeen-year-old. How can you ask me to parade around the halls of General Hospital like this?" She gave Lila her most plaintive look, hoping against hope that her mother would take pity on her.

Lila considered it for a long moment, her face tired and frustrated as she sat next to her daughter, taking Tracy's hand in hers. "I'll admit the outfit is a little silly."

"Jerry Lewis is a little silly, Mother." Tracy swept her hands downward like a presenter at a car show. "This is utterly absurd."

"It's not that bad."

"It's hideous."

Lila frowned, then nodded. "Yes, dear. It's hideous. But it's also the only costume we could get on short notice, and you're the only person we have to wear it." She brushed a strand of Tracy's hair out of her eyes, pushing behind her ears. "Beverly Hawkin's daughter had originally volunteered to do it."

"Squawkin' Hawkins?" Tracy giggled.

"Now really, Tracy!" Lila shook her head. "She developed measles just two nights ago."

"Lucky her."

"I've called everyone on the committee. Nobody had anybody who (a) was available and (b) would fit the costume."

"Couldn't I just wear a colorful skirt and blouse? Something with a holiday flair?"

"The children are expecting Santa and his elf. We've got a Santa." Lila looked her daughter up and down. "You're the elf."

"Aw, Mom…"

"Think of the children…"

"Think of the humiliation…"

"Think of how good it will feel to help people."

"Think of how bad it will feel when I snap from the utter mortification and ruin everyone's party by turning into a blithering lunatic right there in front of Santa and the kiddies!"

Lila blew out a hard breath of air, her frustration with Tracy showing for the first time. "Tracy!"

"Mother, no!"

"Oooh. I didn't want to d this, but you leave me no choice." She narrowed her eyes, fixing them on Tracy. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

Tracy pulled slightly away from her mother. "What…sort…of desperate measures?"

"Bribery."

"Huh? Tracy's ears perked up, and a smile spread across her face as it registered what her mother was suggesting. "I'm listening.'

"Remember the dress you've been begging me for all throughout the holiday break?"

Tracy's eyes got wide. "_The_ dress? The powder blue strapless, three-quarter length cocktail dress with full skirt and silver accents across the bodice? The dress that will catapult me from ordinary to the heights of fashion? The dress that will make me the envy of every girl at Ryan Jackson's New Year's Eve party? That dress?"

"Yes, that would be the one," Lila said glumly.

"You said that dress was too mature for me."

"I'm desperate, dear."

Tracy did the math in her head. Three hours of abject humiliation to buy her the most fabulous party dress in the history of all humanity. Was it worth it?

She turned to her mother, smiling sweetly. "Okay, Mother. I'm ready to negotiate."

Four hours later, as she ducked down the hallway to avoid yet another kid playing hot rod with his wheelchair, Tracy began to wonder if her math had added up correctly. In the past three hours, she'd had cake thrown in her hair, a screaming baby spit up all over her, and the beginnings of a killer headache from all the shouting and noise. Somebody, somewhere, was reading the Christmas story to the kids, and she took the opportunity to make herself scarce. Santa wasn't scheduled to arrive for another forty minutes, so she figured she had time for a break.

She opened the door to one of the rooms and ducked in. It was dark in there and quiet (except for the damned jingle bells which she had wanted to rip off the costume with her bare hands from the moment she'd tried it on.) A perfect hideout.

"Hey." There was a voice in the darkness, and Tracy practically jumped out of her pointy shoes. "You in the elf costume. Would you hit the light?"

"Uh, okay." She hit the light switch, seeing for the first time a scrawny boy lying on the bed. He looked like hell--all tubes and bags and pale, splotchy skin. "I'm sorry. I thought this room was empty," she said lamely. She could tell that the kid was really sick, and suddenly she remembered just exactly where she was. "I can…"

"Hey, don't leave, will ya?" The boy pushed himself up in his bed. He had thin blond hair that seemed to fade into the pillow, and his hands were bony and large. "You're Tracy, aren't you? Mrs. Quartermaine's daughter?"

"Uh, no," she lied quickly. "I've never heard of her."

The boy laughed, then started coughing loudly. Tracy rushed to his side, not sure what to do, but certain that she didn't want her lie to be the last thing he heard before he hacked himself to death.

"Do you need anything? Some water? Um, uh--" She floundered. Her knowledge of medicine was pretty much limited to aspirin and where the hospital coffee shop was, and she felt horribly out of her depth. "Should I call someone?"

The boy shook his head, still coughing. "s'Okay, really. Just…" He coughed again, wheezing, before he began to calm down. "I'm not good for much excitement these days."

"Is that why you skipped the party?"

He laughed again, delicately this time to avoid another coughing jag. "Nah, I skipped the party because I didn't want to be around a bunch of noisy four-year-olds." He leaned back, breathing hard but calmer now. "You _are_ Tracy, aren't you?"

She looked in every direction but directly at him.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he continued, smiling weakly.

"Should I?" Tracy tried to think where on earth she could possibly know this boy from. She spent most of her year at school in Switzerland, and during breaks, she had her own circle of friends to run around with. "I'm sorry…"

"It's okay. I wouldn't guess you'd remember me. My father and yours were in business together, back when we were kids. My mom used to visit your mom sometimes, and she'd bring me to play with you. Last time, we were about five."

Tracy's eyes widened. "You _remember_ that?" She couldn't remember what she'd had for lunch yesterday, and this guy remembered back to a few visits when they were _five_?

"You were very memorable." He looked her up and down. "You know, you're welcome to hide out here for a while. They shouldn't be finished with the story time for another half hour or so."

She grinned, and took the chair he gestured for her to sit in. He was nice enough, and it was definitely better in here than out there. "You sound like you know the drill."

"I've been coming to these things for most of my life," he said. "After a while, the thrill is gone, you know?"

"I'll bet." She stared openly, then realized what she was doing. Finally, curiosity got the better of her, and she asked, "What's wrong with you?"

"Practically everything," he said, shrugging as best he could in his octopus-like mess of tubing and wires. "I was born with a congenital heart condition, which made me weak and susceptible to disease. Then, when I hit eight or nine, I really started cracking up, medically speaking." His voice was nonchalant as he rattled off his ailments. "Liver problems, pituitary gland problems--I'm seventeen, but I look fourteen--my hormones didn't shoot straight, and frankly, my lungs aren't worth the tissue they're made of. I've had seven major surgeries and a dozen minor ones." He reached over and pulled a tin from the little table next to his bed. "Want some peanut brittle? I'm not supposed to eat a lot of sugar, but at this stage of the game, who the hell cares, right?"

"Wow." Tracy didn't know what to say. What _was_ there to say, really? "Hey, you never told me your name."

"Tom. Tommy, Milford," he added as an afterthought.

"Milford, Milford…" The name rung a bell. "Charles Midford? Of Midford Aeronautics?"

"That's my father. What, do you memorize _The Wall Street Journal_?" He popped a tiny piece of brittle between his thin lips, and pushed the can toward her. "Sure you don't want any?"

"I don't remember you, though. You said we used to play together?"

"Well, a couple of times. Then, when we were five, I must have said something to tick you off, because you shoved me and the little chair I was sitting in right over. I was sprawled across the floor, and my mom threw a fit!"

Tracy felt her face going red. She vaguely remembered an incident like that, getting punished--but after a while….

"You still don't remember me? I remember you getting punished really bad."

"Ha! If I had a dime for every time I got punished really bad, I'd own the Chrysler Building." She took a piece of peanut brittle, since he seemed really determined to share it with her, and popped it into her mouth. It was actually sort of good, and she chewed slowly as she tried to remember the incident in question. "I can't believe I would have smacked a sick kid, even if he did annoy me."

"I wasn't that sick at the time. In fact, that was the healthiest I've ever been, which is why Mom would take me out." He smiled at her, his thin lips wide as he gazed on her with admiration. "You were incredible."

"I was a monster," Tracy said in horror.

"No, it was great! There was a huge commotion--I think my dad even threatened to sue your dad. I never had so much fun in my life."

She stared at him, trying to figure out if he was pulling her leg. "You're kidding, right?"

He spread his arms wide. "Look at me, Tracy. People have been handling me with kid gloves since the moment I was born. You are quite possibly the only person in my entire life who ever treated me like a regular person. When you knocked me out of that chair, it was like being a normal kid…just for a little while."

"Well…" She still thought he was nuts, but if her bullying ways made him happy, who was she to argue? "Glad I could be of service."

He laughed again, hard this time, which caused another coughing jag. She apologized profusely, moving to his side to help him sit up, patting his back gently for lack of anything more useful to do. When he was done, he took her hand in his. It was weak and clammy, but Tracy didn't shrink back. "Thanks," he said as he leaned back against the pillow. "Laughing hurts, but it's still better than being bored out of my mind."

From her new angle, Tracy noticed for the first time a rolling tray covered with books. There were tons of them, enough for ten people to read. "Are all of those yours?"

"Yup. I've read most of them. Trade lots of them with other patients."

She walked around the bed, searching the titles until she came across one of the newer books. "Holy cow!" It enormous--so big she could barely put her fingers around it--with leather binding and gold trimmed pages. "_A Brief History of Humanity_. Sounds ambitious."

"Your mom gave it to me," he said to her surprise. "Yeah, I know. She's an optimist." He watched as Tracy flipped through the pages, squinting at the tiny print. "It'd take a lifetime to read that thing. I'll be lucky if I'm alive long enough to get to the Golden Age of Rome."

"Don't talk like that!" She slammed the book shut, putting it back on the shelf so quickly the whole thing rattled. "You shouldn't talk like that," she repeated, shivering against a sudden chill.

"Tracy," he said calmly. "I've been dying since before I was born. I shouldn't have lived long enough to learn to talk. I'm lucky."

She felt the tears burning against her eyelids, and turned away so he wouldn't see her fighting it. Here he was, so calm and collected about dying. "Isn't there…I mean, medical science is amazing. It's amazing what they can do--can't they…?"

"No, Tracy. They can't cure what I've got, which is basically a crappy body." He reached out for her, and she hesitated just a moment before turning, moving closer, standing at his bedside. "I guess it's easier for me, because I've had time to get used to it."

"It's not fair."

"Life's not fair." He reached out, taking her hand in his. "But you have to just be cool about it, you know? I mean, here it is, Christmas Eve. I could whine about being sick, about not going to parties, about not going to regular school." He grinned. "Or I could be happy, because a pretty bully in an elf costume is keeping me company."

Tracy's face went red. She'd forgotten all about the stupid elf costume, only to have this dying sweet guy remind her of it at the worst possible time. "Oh, this…I just…my mom…"

"You're lucky. The elf costume is an improvement. Up until last year, the poor slob whose mom roped them into volunteering had to wear a reindeer costume!"

Tracy began to laugh, feeling ridiculous and relieved and happy at the same time. Tommy was laughing, too, and that's how the nurse found them when she came in to check his vital signs.

"I'd better go," Tracy said, still laughing as she backed out of the door. "You want me to bring you something from the party?" she asked. "Some punch, or something?"

"Surprise me," he said as he lifted his arm for the nurse to check his blood pressure.

Tracy walked back into the hallway, grinning from ear to ear. It was still too early for her to go help Santa pass out the gifts, so she wandered the hospital, looking for something to give him. When she spied it, she got that shiver of excitement she always got when the perfect plan was hatched. She nabbed the item in question, tucking it quickly in the sleeve of her costume before anyone noticed she'd taken it. It was a few minutes before the nurse left Tommy's room, and she knocked before entering.

"Come in," he said, and she hurried in, closing the door behind her. The nurse had turned off the lights again, leaving only the little night lamp burning next to his bed. "Hey, you."

"Hey, you," she said.

"I just had my meds. Better start with the present-giving, because I'm gonna be sound asleep in about ten minutes." He looked her over carefully, trying to see if she was concealing anything. "What did you bring me?"

"Something…" She flashed him a flirty smile, and walked over to his bedside. "Close your eyes."

"Oh?" He closed his eyes, and she pulled the tiny sprig of mistletoe out of her sleeve, holding it over his head. "Can I open them yet?"

"Not yet," she said quickly, pulling off her cap and fluffing up her hair. With a quick look at the tiny mirror on the other side of the room, she figured it was the best she could do on short notice. "Okay, open them."

"What?" He didn't see the mistletoe at first, so she shook it a little to catch his attention. When he realized what it was, his eyes got enormous. "Oh…."

"What's the matter, Tom?" she said, leaning over, letting her hair fall over his shoulders. "Never seen mistletoe before?" The steady beep of his heart monitor got a little faster, and she had to suppress a giggle. "Scared?"

"I know you might not believe this, but I'm not really much of a ladies' man." His voice was weak, and she was worried that just the anticipation would send him over the edge. Tracy wondered for a terrifying moment if this had been a horrible mistake, but his breathing began to calm, and the beep returned to normal.

"You _do_ know what happens when somebody catches you under the mistletoe, don't you?" She raised an eyebrow. He wasn't that cute, honestly. But he was sweet, and she found she really wanted to do this. "You aren't going to run away, are you?"

"Uh, nope. I'm pretty much here to stay," he whispered, his voice catching in his throat as she leaned down to brush her lips against his. There was a brief moment when neither of them could breathe, then Tommy's seventeen-year-old hormones discovered themselves. He pushed forward, kissing her hungrily, savoring it, reveling in what might possibly the only real kiss he'd ever receive. Tracy felt the kiss down in her stomach, the thrill of it, this kiss with a boy she barely knew, a boy who probably wouldn't reach his eighteenth birthday. It wasn't the smoothest kiss she'd ever had, or the most skilled, but it was definitely the most appreciated, and the most enthusiastic. She lingered there for several long moments, half-afraid the nurse might come back in and catch them, half-praying that it could go on for hours.

When they finally came up for air, Tommy was having a hard time breathing, but he was grinning hugely. "Damn," he choked out. "You knocked me out of my chair again."

Tracy laughed softly, tickling his forehead with the mistletoe. "You kiss like you've had practice."

"You kiss like an angel."

"Devils are more fun," she corrected, twisting the mistletoe between her fingers. She was about to kiss him again when she heard the sound of bells in the hall. "Damn!"

"Santa Claus is coming to town," Tommy teased. "I think that's your cue."

"Want me to come back later?" she asked.

"I'll be knocked out before you have the first gift unwrapped." He reached out a single hand to play with the bells on her collar. "Come back on New Year's?"

"It's a date." She kissed his cheek, and hurried off to finish up her duties as a Christmas Elf.

December 31; the same year.

She shivered as she hurried through the doors of General Hospital. It was obscenely cold outside, but Tracy had refused to wear her heavy overcoat, opting instead for the more stylish mink stole she'd borrowed from her mother. It went perfectly with her party dress, a charming accent to her upswept hair, the diamond solitaire necklace she wore, and her fabulous shoes. She felt like a million bucks, and looked it too. A little thing like a sudden cold snap wasn't going to keep her from looking amazing tonight.

She paused at the reception desk to sign in, grabbed her volunteer badge, winked at the cute orderly who stared as she passed, and headed straight for the fourth floor where Tommy's room was. She only had a few minutes to visit, and she was afraid she'd get there too late after his medicine and he'd be asleep.

She hurried down the hallway, her heels clicking against the linoleum tiles as she went. Several of the staff recognized her, and complimented her on how pretty and grown up she looked. Some of them even seemed sincere.

She knocked before entering Tommy's room. When there was no response, she knocked again. "Damn," she muttered. She'd probably gotten there too late. She cracked open the door, not wanting to wake him. She'd just leave the mistletoe on his nightstand, so he'd know she'd been there when he woke up.

The room was fully lit when she walked in, the bed made, and the all signs indicated that the room was no longer occupied. Tracy felt a rock forming in the pit of her stomach. She looked around for Tommy's chart, for the little shelf of books, for anything of his that might be there… Finally, she slammed her hand down on the nurse's call button. The machines were gone. Her stomach did flip-flops as she pressed the button again. The books were gone. She kept hitting the button over and over, fighting the wave of hysteria she felt rising in her.

A nurse came running, stopping short when she saw Tracy. "Where is he? Where's Tommy?" she shouted, advancing on the nurse as if in attack.

"Miss Quartermaine," the nurse began. "You shouldn't be here."

"Where is the boy who was in this room last week?"

"I think your mother is still downstairs. I'll call her, and she can talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to my mother, you moron. I want to talk to the boy who was in this room!"

"Just…wait here," the nurse turned, running into Lila, who was hurrying through the door. "Oh, thank god. Lila, she wants to know where the Milford boy is."

"I'll take it from here, Rebecca, thank you," Lila said calmly. "You go finish your rounds."

Tracy had sunk onto the bed, her dress rumpling beneath her as she let the fur stole fall behind her onto mattress. She could feel the tears streaming down her face, ruining her make-up. "Mom?"

"Tracy, I'm sorry. I knew you were coming to see him today--Tom talked of nothing all week. I tried to telephone the house, but you had already left."

"I had some errands to run," she said blankly.

"He passed very easily, sweetheart." Lila sat next to her daughter on the bed, pulling her into a gentle embrace as Tracy began to weep openly. "He was receiving palliative care, love. All anyone could do was ease his pain."

"It's not fair, Mommy. It's just not fair." She allowed her mother to rock her, letting Lila comfort her the way she used to do when Tracy was just a little girl. She didn't know why this was affecting her so much. She barely knew the boy. Why should she be so broken up by it? "It's just…" she said, answering her own question aloud. "It's just so unfair. He never got to do anything." She sniffed. "He'll never get to do anything."

"He was a remarkable young man," Lila agreed, kissing Tracy's forehead. "He was so happy with your visit on Christmas Eve. He hardly spoke of anything else in the last week."

Tracy buried her head in her mother's shoulders, trying to hide the blush. She wondered just exactly what Tommy had revealed about her "visit," and if he was the type to kiss and tell. In the end, though, it didn't really matter. She'd kissed a boy she barely knew under the mistletoe on Christmas Eve. It wasn't such an unusual thing to do.

Just like he was a normal boy.

She sniffed again, burrowing into her mother's arms. "When did…when did it happen?"

"This afternoon. Around one."

"I was getting my nails done." Tracy felt like the most shallow, vapid creature on the planet. While this boy was breathing his final breath, she was having a manicure and wondering if she should let Ryan Jackson get to second base tonight.

"Did it…was he in a lot of pain?"

"No, dear. He was very peaceful."

Tracy breathed deeply, as if trying to shake off the feelings of guilt. "What happened to all his stuff? His books?"

"His parents asked that we box up his belongings and give them to charity. The books are going to the Port Charles Community Library. He did say that you should take one, if you wanted."

"He did?" She smiled. It sounded like him.

Lila hugged her gently. "I believe Tom was quite taken with you, dear. Do you want to go look through the books?"

"No, I know the one I want. The book you gave him, the history book."

Lila looked at her in surprise, but nodded. "I'll have Rebecca get it out of the box before it goes to the library."

"Can't I go get it now?"

"But what about your party?"

Tracy shrugged. "I don't feel like going yet. I just want to sit here for a little while and read."

Lila searched her face for a long moment, then nodded. "The books are in a box behind the nurses' station. You can stay in here for a while, if you need some privacy."

"Thank you, Mommy." Tracy got up, leaving her mother's mink on the bed as she walked towards the door. "Are the Milfords going to have a service for him?"

"Next week," Lila said.

"Can I go?"

"Of course you can."

"Thanks, Mom." Tracy opened the door and headed for the nurses' station. She wasn't really tracking well. The whole world seemed different now. Everything seemed a bit fuzzy, and she couldn't quite make sense of anything anymore. She found the box where her mother said it would be, and dug through it until she found the volume she wanted. With effort, she wrested it free, ignoring the curious looks from the nurses and nurses' aides, who knew from experience that Lila Quartermaine's bad seed daughter wasn't exactly the bookworm type.

When she got back to what had been Tommy's room, her mother was gone, and the mink stole was folded neatly on the bed. She sat down in the chair she'd sat in on Christmas Eve, just staring out into space for a while. The book felt cool against her hand, its soft leather against her fingertips. She just sat quietly, feeling its weight in her lap, thinking of mistletoe and jingle bells and wondering how Christmas would ever be the same again.

Finally, she managed to open the cover of the book. To her amazement, there was an inscription inside the front cover.

_"Tracy. I knew you'd pick this book. Thanks for pushing me off the chair. Twice. Tom."_

She began to laugh, and then to cry, still laughing as she wept. Carefully, she opened the book to the introduction and began to read. After about ten minutes, she sighed deeply. "Gawd, this is boring."

_December 31, 2005_

_Tracy was just about to convince herself to stall--like she did every year--when she turned back to the inside front cover--like she did every year. And there it was, like it had been every year since she was seventeen, that crooked scrawl, the shaky handwriting, the simple words._

_"Tracy. I knew you'd pick this book. Thanks for pushing me off the chair. Twice. Tom."_

_It worked. Just like it had worked last year, and every year before since the first time she'd read it. Tracy sat down on the bed, rifled through her purse to find her glasses, and thumbed through the book find to this year's chapter._

_There was a knock on her bedroom door, and Tracy shut the book as her husband walked in. "Spanky, what are you doing? Shouldn't you be getting ready for the party?"_

_She shook her head. Luke looked fairly dapper in his party clothes, although she knew for a fact that any care he'd taken in his appearance was for the benefit of Skye, not his wife. "I have time," she said. "I have to finish this first."_

_"What are you up to, my pretty pink peppermint Popsicle? Some dastardly scheme to ring in the new year?"_

_"If you must know, I'm reading." She showed him the book._

_" u A Brief History of Humanity /u ?" Luke picked up the book from her lap, groaning with the effort. "Spanky, I find it hard to believe you'd choose this for a little light reading. Ugh." He handed her back the book._

_"I've been reading a chapter of this book on New Year's Eve every year since I was seventeen," she said._

_"Really? What chapter are you on?"_

_"Ha, no. You'll just do the math and try to figure out my age. Let's say I'm somewhere between Fred Flintstone and George Jetson, okay?"_

_"You gonna be long?"_

_"Not if you let me read," she said testily. She really didn't need the distraction. It was hard enough motivating herself to wade through this thing every New Year's._

_"I can't believe you've lugged this thing around with you since you were a teenager."_

_"I haven't. This one stayed here all along. Where-ever I was, there was always a library around that carried it. The damn thing's been reprinted and translated more times than the Bible, I think." She grinned. "I suppose there are more history geeks than any of us would suspect. When Dillon and I were in Provence, I read my chapters in French for two years straight."_

_Luke looked at her thoughtfully, reaching out to stroke her hair. "Why do I get the feeling there's a story behind this book?"_

_"Because there is."_

_"And why do I get the feeling that you're not going to tell me that story?"_

_"Because I'm not. Now, toddle off and find something expensive of Daddy's to drink. You don't want to get a slow start on the new year." She waved him off, trying to get him to leave her alone so she could get this over with._

_"Don't be long, wife?" He paused at the doorway, winking. "It wouldn't be a party without you."_

_"I'll just be a little while," she said softly. When he shut the door behind him, she opened the book "Chapter Forty-One. The Ottoman Empire. Oh, joy," she muttered and began to read "I hope you appreciate this, Tommy. Wherever you are…"_

_After about ten minutes, she sighed, looking heavenward. "Gawd, this is boring!"_

The End

Written for the 100 Situations Challenge.


	24. 022 Beggar Rated M

**Title:** Beggar in the House of Plenty  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: ** #22 Beggar  
**Word Count: ** 1,551 words  
**Rating: ** R  
**Summary: ** Tracy takes one last chance with Paul before things blow up forever.  
**Author's Notes: ** I totally didn't want to write this. There are some upsetting things in this story—mostly, Tracy in desperate!wife mode. It ain't pretty, but that's what the prompt created. Consent is there; joy is not. Time frame—early 90s. Tracy has just found out she's pregnant with Dillon.

She had it on reasonable authority that the powder would work.

She had friends, women with vested interests in making their rich, old husbands feel virile and potent, who swore by the stuff.

_Mix a teaspoon in his drink at dinner. Not too much alcohol, for godsake, Tracy._

Tracy never thought it would come to this. She'd never considered herself a great beauty, but she'd done well enough. Three husbands and far more lovers had taught her a thing or two about sex. And while she wasn't 21 anymore, she was still young enough to…

"Dear god," she whispered, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

How did she come to this place?

Her breasts were already beginning to swell, she noticed as she adjusted the straps on her negligee. One of the perks of pregnancy, she thought without humor.

Paul was going to be furious with her. He would accuse her of trying to trap him with an unplanned pregnancy.

She thought back to their courtship, to this beautiful, unexpected love that had hit her out of the blue. How much she wanted to be with him… How much she wanted to give him…

She should be thrilled.

She'd never thought she could become pregnant. "Over 30" was not pregnancy time in her mind.

She'd been reasonably careful, she thought.

How beautiful this baby could be, she thought.

_Just a teaspoon in his drink_, Marta had said. The phone connection was bad, and her accent thick enough to be almost unintelligible over the transatlantic line. Marta, who had scratched and clawed her way from nothing—no beauty, no money, no pedigree—to become the wife of one of England's most powerful Lords. Marta, who'd taken pity on poor young Tracy, the new Lady Ashton, the rich American outcast who didn't fit into that world anymore than Marta did.

Oh, the things they had taught each other!

_Darlink_, she'd said. _Darlink, you must go to the herb shop and tell them exactly what I have told you. Do not be ashamed. They will not even know why you are there. Do not take any of the powder yourself. You do not want to harm the baby._

Tracy spread her hands down along her hips. Were they getting wider? She'd lost all the weight from Ned almost immediately. The curves of pregnancy had given way to her normal sleek silhouette, just as if there had never been a child.

It was storming outside. She'd taken the liberty of "knocking out" the phone lines—just a quick trip around the place to unplug all the extensions.

_You must not use too much of the powder, child. You don't wish to kill him, do you?_

Of course, she didn't.

She thought she didn't.

Tracy rubbed cream into her elbows. The negligee was getting tighter, or was it her imagination?

Who was it who said all pregnant women glowed? Tracy wondered if she would ever have a pregnancy that caused her to glow—a happy pregnancy with a wanted child while in a marriage that worked.

She'd put one teaspoon in his drink at dinner. There was spicy Indian take-out, flavors so bold they would knock out any chance of his noticing anything odd.

She had smiled, and listened to him talk. Like a good wife. They had pretended tonight, and she was glad for it. The pretense would make it easier in some ways.

Easier to forget her shame. Easier to forget her humiliation.

"Tracy!"

Her master's voice.

Tracy said nothing. She continued to rub the cream into her skin.

"Tracy, where are my keys?"

His keys were in her dresser, under her blue silk camisole, carefully hidden until she got what she needed. Tracy wiped her hands on her arms, rubbing the excess cream into her skin. Her grandmother's old silver brush glinted in the lamplight, and she picked it up, pulling it slowly through her shoulder-length coffee-colored hair.

The door to the bedroom opened and Paul walked in. He seemed agitated. "Didn't you hear me?"

_Be careful with your amounts, Tracy. Don't be greedy—a little will suffice. There's a fine line between passion and rage. You don't want him too excited, do you, lamb?_

"I'm sorry. What did you say?" She didn't turn. She could see him in the mirror.

"Have you seen my keys?" His voice was softer now, and Tracy could see that he was staring.

The only light in the room was the lamp on the dresser. When the light shone through, as she knew it was doing right now, the fabric of her negligee became almost transparent.

Paul was staring at her.

She lifted her hair off her shoulders slightly, running the brush underneath to get at the tangles near her neck. "I haven't seen them, baby." She turned slightly, flashing him a little pout. "Maybe you left them in your jacket?"

He was blushing.

Tracy turned back to the mirror. She wanted to smile, but her lips had forgotten how.

"I checked my jacket." His voice was tentative. He was watching her. She could almost feel his eyes on her back, on her rear end, on her long, slender legs. She could almost feel him weighing his options.

What he wanted? Or what was close at hand?

_It will work, darlink. It always worked for me._

"Where are you going?" she asked casually, as if she needed an answer. If the powder was working, there was only one thing on Paul's mind, and only one person he wanted to satisfy him.

But he had no keys to go to her. And he had no phone to call her.

And Tracy was here, and willing.

"I have to make a call," he said.

"Oh, the phones are out," she said casually. "I tried to call Mother earlier, and the line was dead. I think the storm knocked them out."

"Can I use your car?"

She was crossing the floor now, her starting-to-get-wider hips swaying gently with each step. In a moment, she was face to face with him, breathing in his scent, wanting him as much as if she'd put the teaspoon of powder in her own drink. "It's storming, baby. And my car is in the shop. I told you that." She reached up to stroke his cheek, closing the distance between them. "There's nothing you need to do tonight that can't be done tomorrow."

His breathing was labored, and she felt dirty with his desire.

The damage was done.

She was already damned by a pregnancy she'd never expected.

She was already the other woman in her own marriage.

She was already the bitch, the harpy, the one whose side nobody saw.

Why couldn't she have a little pleasure of her own, before everything went from bad to worse? Because when Paul learned she was pregnant, he'd never willingly or happily go to her bed again, no matter what herbal aphrodisiac she used to spike his drink at dinner.

"You're so tense, Paul," she said, tracing her finger down his strong, angular jaw. She'd kissed him there, planted a line of soft whispers against his beautiful face, once upon a time. Back when she still believed the lie, when she stifled her own instincts that told her to be careful, to be smart.

Never fall in love with a man more beautiful than you are.

"I need to find my keys," he whispered, taking her wrist in his fist, pulling it down to his side. The gesture caught her off balance, and she felt slightly toward him.

It was enough.

It was enough, and Paul was not strong enough in character to resist.

Never fall in love with a man more beautiful than you are, because beautiful men tend to be weak.

She wrapped her free arm around his shoulder, accepting his hard kiss eagerly, letting him push her other wrist behind her back, reveling in the feeling of force that simple gesture inspired.

He wanted.

He needed.

And little Jenny Eckert was nowhere to be found, nowhere to ease his pain.

But his wife was there.

It wasn't what she wanted. It wasn't what she'd dreamed of for herself, having to seduce her own husband with tricks and herbs and stormy nights.

There was no knight in shining armor waiting for Tracy at the end of this story.

But his body was warm and urgent against her, and she was hungrier than she'd ever been in her life. She was a beggar, and he was the feast. There were no violins playing when he pulled her to the bed, ripping at her negligee, his mouth hard and demanding on her flesh. There were no whispers of poetry and true love in her ear.

This was sex. This was need, his and hers, a matching set.

Soon enough, she wouldn't be able to hide her condition from him. And no matter what the truth was, she'd be found guilty of getting pregnant to trap him in the marriage.

He'd never want her again—not in any way good or healthy. It was quite possible that tonight, this moment, would be the last time Tracy ever took her husband to bed.

But tonight was enough.

Tomorrow, Paul Hornsby could be gone forever.

But tonight…he belonged to Tracy.

The End

Written for the lj user"100situations" Challenge.


	25. 023 False

**Title:** Ned and Tracy's Excellent Adventure  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: ** #23 False  
**Word Count: ** 14, 792 words  
**Rating: ** PG  
**Summary: ** After being suspended from his posh boarding school, Ned has a wild ride with his mother across the European countryside.  
**Author's Notes: ** This story was too long to post in one chapter. I've inserted it as its own story—Ned and Tracy's Excellent Adventure. But it's still Prompt 23. Darn it.

1


	26. 024 Happy Rated M

**Title: ** Happy  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: ** #24 Happy  
**Word Count: ** 1,404 words  
**Rating: ** R  
**Summary: ** Luke and Tracy celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary.  
**Author's Notes: ** No plot whatsoever. Just future!fic of my Utopian vision of where Luke and Tracy will be in four years. Realists and pessimists need not apply. There is an NC17 version of this story at my LiveJournal.

They've been through so much together. Sickness, feuds, death and birth. Years have passed, and hopefully years will come. He is older. She is older. Together, their age is astonishing to them. They don't remember getting old, they laugh.

They aren't old.

He lifts his glass in toast to the occasion, and she takes it from him with a flirtatious grin, empties it. He takes her glass, lifts it to his lips, and sips it without breaking eye contact.

"To us," she whispers.

"To us," he whispers back and puts down the glass. She is beautiful to him, graceful in a completely unexpected way, and he wants to kiss her now. Her eyes glisten, and she tilts her head upward to offer him her mouth--the mouth that has held as many curses as kisses in their five year marriage, the mouth that has caused him equal parts pleasure and grief. He claims it again, claims it as often now as when they first fell in love, when they first stopped playing games with each other. He finds he never loses his hunger for her taste, and she never fails to surprise him, to excite him with her kisses.

There is food, of course, and wine. There are candles in the room, the trappings of romance. The bed is huge and, whimsy be damned, he's scattered rose petals across it. There is a good chance she'll mock him for sentimentality and romantic foolishness, but there is an equal chance she'll be swept away, touched by the gesture, spurred on to even greater heights of passion.

Tracy is just that way.

In all the years he's known her, Luke has never quite figured out a foolproof way to predict her reactions. He's never quite figured out the flawless machinations of that brilliant mind of hers.

It arouses him in a way no other woman ever has. He wants her in the bed with him, and makes no pretense or games when letting her know. She has the decency to smile at him as he kisses her neck, has the presence not to shy away from his hands as he removes her negligee.

Her body is not as young as it once was, but neither is his. They are not twenty-five anymore, and that is perfectly okay with him. She is beautiful to him, her flaws and imperfections translated by love into something deeper, into something of the goddess in her. She is a priestess, says the atheist, who worships at her temple. She is a work of art, says the cretin, who gazes at her intently, mesmerized.

Luke is never quite sure how he lucked into this love, how his own rotten trick turned into the greatest gift of his life, but when she is naked next to him, he doesn't tempt fate. He kisses her deeply, lets her unbutton his shirt, lets her kiss her way down his throat, feeling the heat of her lips and her breath against his chest. It isn't as hard as it used to be, his belly not so flat. He isn't a young man anymore, but she makes him feel like one.

There is a lust in her eyes when she looks at his naked body that elevates him, makes him want to satisfy her. The blue pill he took is already kicking in. He's no longer ashamed of it, of the bitch that is getting old. Pride is one thing, but there is no way he's going to let it stand in the way of satisfying his wife on this of all nights.

She pulls him down next to her, their bodies connecting in that same old dance of theirs, no less thrilling for its familiarity. Her body is well-known territory; he's explored every hill and valley, greets every freckle like an old friend as he places kiss after kiss on her skin.

She is moaning now, her hands greedy. He is amazed at her nature, wonders if he could have satisfied her at her peak. She told him once she tended to get "athletic" in bed. What he knows now, after so many trips to the gym with her, is that she is demanding, creative, passionate. They are both creatures of desire, and they have taught each other new ways of acting out their fiery natures. She pushes him, he pushes her--they challenge each other's stamina and innovation.

Her hand is already between them, reaching for him. Once upon a time, she told him she loved the feel of a man's cock in her hand. He thinks back to the first time she touched him there, and laughs in spite of himself.

Tracy looks up at him. "Something funny, Husband?" she murmurs, stroking the head of his cock with the pad of her thumb.

"Just thinking about the time you threatened to break it off," he said, nibbling her shoulder as he rolls her onto her back. He catches her eyes. She's okay. She looks away, just slightly embarrassed.

He kisses her eyelids, her cheekbones and jaw, as he rolls on top of her. This is her secret, her fetish. This is not all she is, he knows, but it's something deep inside of her, something broken and begging to be healed.

She wants to be the nice girl. She wants to be taken, passive and virtuous, claimed. Not all the time, but often enough that it is a fetish, a kink almost.

He knows she will be more aggressive later tonight, pushing him, challenging him in ways no nice girl ever imagined. But now, she wants it sweet. Now she wants it old-fashioned, and he lies atop her, his hands working her flesh, his mouth teasing and warm.

She is moaning beneath him, wanting him, her words soft and incoherent as she wraps herself around him, welcoming him, opening herself to his claim.

It's an old and familiar feeling, yet no less sweet, when he enters her. He takes her slowly, gently, like the first time, like they're kids again, scared and nervous and tentative. She rests her head against his shoulder as her arms and legs tighten around his body, as she rocks in rhythm with him, inviting him deeper inside of her. He can practically hear "Moon River" playing somewhere. He begins to hum it in her ear, and she laughs, urging him onward, humming her own counterpoint.

It is amazing to him how this simple act can arouse him, how her gentlest touch can astonish him. It is amazing that he's not so jaded, that she's not so broken, that they can still feel this--the pleasure, the passion.

They are breathing hard when they finally come down from their pleasures, wrapped in each others arms, hair mussed and skin covered in glistening perspiration. Luke pulls her against him, kisses her soundly. She is his own Katherine the Shrew, his secret treasure, beautiful and passionate and challenging.

When he sees her looking at him, her eyes filled with so much love and peace, he has to ground himself. Has to steel himself against his natural reaction to such unashamed affection--which is to get scared, to get nervous, to run. He doesn't want to run anymore. He's content here, more than content, with this wicked sweet woman of his. There's no place to run anymore.

She breathes in deeply, her shoulders shifting slightly as she smiles dreamily at him. He knows this is just a lull, that there will be much more to come. But they can pace themselves. They have all the time in the world. He kisses her gently. "How you feeling, Spanky?" he asks.

Tracy stares up at him, as if it's a difficult question. Then she lowers her eyes, shy again. She will go through this, he knows, these moments of shyness. It's one of her mysteries, one he doesn't expect or even want to solve. "I feel…." She hesitates, taking the moment to kiss his chin lightly. "I feel happy," she whispers, as if she's just revealed a state secret. He knows where she's been, and what she's been through. He knows how precious and rare happiness is, and marvels at how much such a simple word means to him.

"I love you, Wife," he says, his voice breaking on the truth of it.

"I love you, too, Husband," she whispers, and snuggles into his arms.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

4


	27. 025 Cancer

**Title: ** The Monster on the Floor  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#25 Cancer  
**Word Count: **526 words  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Summary:** Thoughts are a cancer, spreading, destroying, paralyzing.  
**Author's Notes: **I started a completely different story for this prompt, then decided to save it elsewhere to write as an independent. This is a very dark little piece set in 1980. Tracy fans will probably know where I'm going with this one….

The thought was a cancer to her. It was one of those things she didn't like about herself, how she could come to obsess so quickly on an idea, on a plan. It had made her formidable in so many important areas of her life—school and work, mainly.

In her daily life, though, it just gave her a headache.

The thought taking form, taking root in her mind, was a particularly insidious one. A particularly vicious little inkling--_My father is not my father._

She didn't know where it came from. She didn't know who put it there. Something in a look he gave her, something in a gesture. Maybe it was Divine Intervention.

Maybe it was the onset of a stroke.

But she began watching him, obsessing on his gestures, studying his features at the breakfast table, studying the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't noticing.

_My father is not my father._ It sang in her mind, confused her thoughts, fiddled with her moods.

She found herself irritable and restless. She found herself angry for no reason, morose when she should have been content.

It was stupid, of course. There were only two way's Edward could not be her father. The first and most plausible would be if she were adopted. The second, unheard of, would be if her mother had had an affair. And everybody knew Lila would never do such a thing.

No, she had been switched at the hospital. She was a Quartermaine in name only.

The blood of some other man, some kind man who never knew he'd spawned such a witch, ran through her veins. The genetic structure of some other man pulsed through her cells, wrapping itself into the unique double-helix that created Tracy Quartermaine.

Edward could not possibly be her father. Edward could not be the one who sparked life into the egg that split, that renewed itself over and over, thousands of millions of time, to create the fetus that grew into the baby that grew into the young woman who now stared coldly at her dying father.

_Edward is not my father_, she thought as her father clutched his heart. _I am an orphan. My father is dead. My father was a war hero. My father was a grocer. My father was a kind man. My father was not this monster on the floor, begging for his medication, begging for his life._

She watched him, looked at the creature crawling towards the pills she'd put on top of his new will. She turned to look out the window.

He wasn't her father. He was some other girl's father.

He was somebody else altogether, she thought as she stood still, as she refused to help him, not even one bit.

He was a stranger, she realized as she began to ramble, as she began to berate him for the horrible things he'd said to her, as she began to defend herself against his cruelty, as she told him the only man she'd ever loved was him.

He was a stranger, and it's much easier to kill a stranger than your own father.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

2


	28. 026 Pickpocket

**Title: ** The Pickpocket and the Witch  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#26 Pickpocket  
**Word Count:** 3,190 words  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Tracy confronts Lulu about her choices.  
**Author's Notes: **Yeah, I'm going there. Gonna stick my nose into the whole Lulu's pregnancy storyline. So. There.

Tracy was on the couch when Lulu arrived. She'd been summoned, of course. Lulu didn't care who Tracy thought she was; she didn't like being summoned. The truth was it was curiosity more than obedience that had made Lulu show up for the "talk." There had been nothing of threat or manipulation in Tracy's voice when she called. Sure, it could have been bad cell reception, but her StepMonster had actually sounded kind when she asked her to lunch.

So Lulu came, if only to restate her independence, if only to make sure at least Tracy understood that she was not going to be a pawn in some medieval Quartermaine inheritance game. Edward wanted an heir; Tracy wanted a grandson. Dillon wanted to do "the right thing," whatever the hell that was.

In their rush to determine the course of the baby's life, a baby that wasn't even the size of a thimble yet, the Quartermaines didn't really care too much about the life they were wrecking—Lulu's. They didn't care at all that she was facing a future that was more horrible than she could imagine.

Tracy sat there, quietly, waiting for her to settle before talking. She was dressed casually—not jeans and a tee-shirt, of course. Casual for Tracy meant the smaller jewels, loose-fitting tunic over soft, floating pants. Casual meant her claws were sheathed, and her guns were on safety lock.

"You summoned," Lulu said sarcastically as she plopped down in the chair opposite her step-mother.

"I wanted to talk to you without distractions." Tracy's tone was neutral, her voice soft. "I know you're feeling pressured, and I thought we could talk without _them_ around to muddy things up with all that emotional garbage."

Lulu had to laugh. "Oh, and you think this isn't pressure? I've never eaten a meal alone with you in my life, and now you're summoning me to lunch?"

"We can go to Taco Bell, if it'll make you feel more at home," Tracy offered, a slight hint of whimsy attached to the sarcasm in her tone.

"Yeah, right... If you're paying, I'm eating lobster." She matched the sarcasm, not wanting to give Tracy an inch, knowing that if she smelled weakness, her StepMonster would go for blood. "So, the plan is to lull me into a stupor with heavy food, and then get me to sign some legal document giving the Quartermaines complete control over my body?"

Tracy sighed, her expression clouding as she brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. She'd let her hair grow out—it was short when Lulu had first arrived at the QMansion, tapered around the neck. Very butch, Lulu thought in retrospect. Now it was near her shoulders, softly curling in gentle waves. It was false advertising, of course, making Tracy look kinder than she was, gentle and soft.

There was nothing gentle or soft about Tracy Quartermaine. This was common knowledge.

"I'm not my father," Tracy said quietly. There was a hurt in her tone that rattled Lulu's resolve. She knew that hurt. She knew that tone. "I'm not going to force you to do anything at this time." The 'at this time' was pointed, and Lulu rolled her eyes at it. "But you're eighteen, you're pregnant, and you're scared. Your father is not here at the moment, and unfortunately your mother isn't in a position to help."

Lulu bristled at the mention of her mother. Tracy wasn't fit to speak her mother's name, much less assume some position of maternal authority or right. Whatever game she was playing, she wasn't going to fall for it. "I'm fine," she snarled, crossing her legs and turning away from Tracy's intense gaze. "I can manage on my own. I don't need you getting involved."

"I am involved. I have been since the first time I met you." Tracy smiled at the memory. "You were stealing twenties out of Skye's wallet. The only person in the whole house who defended you, and you were picking her pocket." She nodded, her smile turning to a knowing smirk. "I figured out then and there that I needed to keep an eye on you." There was a momentary hesitation, then, "Guess I didn't keep a close enough eye on you, huh?"

"Guess not."

"You know, we don't have to go out. I could have Cook make us lunch, and we can eat it out on the patio. The roses are—"

"Can we just cut to the chase, Tracy? Can we just stop pretending that you have any desire to spend time with me?" Lulu folded her arms across her chest. "You want to tell me what to do with this thing inside of me. You want to soften me up so that I'll be more open to your plot, whatever it is. Why go through the motions and indigestion of lunch? Just tell me what to do, then I'll ignore you, and we'll have both have the afternoon free."

Tracy took a deep breath, steepling the fingers of her hands together as she rested her chin on her thumbs momentarily. "It's not a thing. It's a baby. You need to keep that straight."

"Oh, okay. I get where you're going." Lulu bristled, wondering how much Dillon had told Tracy. She felt no love at all for the father of this child in this moment. He seemed so cool sometimes, but when the chips were down, he was still a mama's boy. Still letting Tracy run his life and, apparently, be the bad guy. "Listen, this isn't medieval Europe, okay? You can't force the little peasant girl to bear her child just because Lord Edward owns the castle and wants an heir."

"Actually, it's Lady Monica who owns the castle," Tracy said with a smirk. "As she is so happy to tell anyone who listens..." The joke fell on deaf ears, and Tracy continued with a sigh. "Look, this is America, and we live in the 21st century," Tracy said. She had leaned back into the cushions of the couch, her gaze intense, her eyes never leaving Lulu. "You are of legal age, _barely_, and you have a choice. Believe it or not, I fiercely believe in choices..." Her voice trailed off, and Lulu could almost hear the unspoken words…_having had so few in my own life._ "As much as I want my son to have what he wants in this world, and as much as I'm going to fight to get that for him, I thought…"

"You thought you'd come to me privately, throw money or threats at me, try to get me to do what Dillon wants, no matter how much it destroys my life?"

"I thought I'd meet you on neutral ground, talk to you woman to woman, and discuss your options with you," she said gently. "Tell you the truth about things, since nobody else here wants to do that."

"What kind of truth?"

"The truth about being a Quartermaine. The truth about what happens if my father gets what he wants." Tracy's tone sent chills up Lulu's spine. She wanted to interrupt, but found herself uncharacteristically unable to speak. "My father wants an heir. My father thinks women are sub-species, incapable of controlling an empire, so my grand-daughter Brooke and I are completely unacceptable. Ned and Dillon have expressed no interest in or aptitude for the family business. Jason's a hit-man for the mob. A.J.'s son has been completely and irrevocably corrupted by your cousin Carly and her mobster friend Sonny." She sighed, looking Lulu up and down. "I hate to break this to you, kid, but that _thing_ inside of you is looking to my father like his last, best hope of passing ELQ and the Quartermaine empire down to an acceptable heir. I pity you."

Lulu shook off the chills that went down her spine. For all her comments about medieval lords and stuff, having it put so bluntly was unnerving. She wasn't a person at all to Edward, just the creature carrying something he wanted, just a means by which he could get an heir for his fortune. "I don't want your pity." Her words didn't come out as strong or confident as she wanted them to.

"No, of course you don't. You think you have it all planned out. You're smart enough to know that Daddy is not going to let a potential heir slip through his fingers, and that adoption is a pipe dream."

"Wow." Tracy's word cut through her like a knife. She'd never actually put the thought together, but the instinct had been there. This was a Quartermaine baby, for all the Spencer she had in her veins. And the Quartermaine family was an octopus, tentacles everywhere, spewing poison wherever they went.

"You're thinking about having an abortion."

To her surprise, there was no accusation in Tracy's tones, no anger or emotion at all. Just the words, harsh and raw, hanging there between them.

"Yes," she whispered.

Tracy nodded, her lips pursed, her eyes distant for a moment. "You've read all the brochures, I'm assuming?"

"I can quote them to you."

"You don't need to. I've read them before."

Lulu looked up, surprised, confused. Tracy was staring at her, arms tight across her chest, her face soft and sad. For a moment, she felt tempted to trust her, to think of her as a person, as a woman, rather than the viperous bitch she truly was. For a moment, she wanted to think this person actually gave a damn about her. "Well, then you know it's safe and legal and _my choice_ if I want it."

"You can never change your mind. You can never turn around. You can never bring her back."

"Her?"

"The baby you abort. The life you terminate. You can never bring her back, once you make the decision." Tracy closed her eyes, her breath deep and labored. "I know there are times when it's the only choice, when it's the only logical and safe and humane choice. I know that you think abortion will make all this trouble go away and will keep you out of my father's grasp. What you don't know is that you will live with it for the rest of your life. You will never, ever stop wondering. You will never, ever stop second-guessing yourself."

"Spare me the pro-life rhetoric."

"I'm Choice," Tracy reiterated. "I am not pro-abortion. I think it's a horrible, sad, terrible thing to do. I also know sometimes in life, you have to do horrible, sad, terrible things. When you have no options left, when you have no other recourse..." She reached out to stroke Lulu's hair, and for the life of her, Lulu swore she saw something in Tracy's eyes that looked like love. "But you have options, you have recourse, Lulu. You don't have to take this option, do this thing you can't undo. I know my father is overwhelming, but I've spent decades fighting him. I can help you fight him, too. I can help you have this baby, get it away from him if you need to, even if that's not what I'd choose. I have the resources to make sure you and the baby have everything you need, even if you don't keep it. And if you choose to give it up for adoption, I can help you get the baby placed in a good home where Daddy will never find her—"

"Oh, stop it! Just stop it!" Lulu put her hands over her ears. "You're just as bad as Edward. You think throwing money at this is going to make it better. You think it's going to make up for what I lose, the experiences I won't have…"

"I think you're single and pregnant and no matter what you choose, you're going to pay for the mistake you've made." Tracy's voice was hard as nails. "Boo-hoo, you won't have a prom. Boo-hoo, you might have to be private tutored instead of going to your senior year with your friends. You want choice? You _chose_ to sleep with my son. That was a very grown-up choice, Little Lulu. Here's the pay-off: now you get to _choose_ to be a grown-up and figure out what to do with that child you and Dillon created."

"You're a cold-hearted bitch."

"Call me all the names you want, Lulu, but you know it's true. And let me tell you something, there are no good choices for you right now. You are in a crappy situation, and you have to make some hard decisions. But I will tell you right here and right now, there are some decisions you will never get over."

"Please…."

"Lulu…"

"You act as if you know what I'm going through. You act as if you know what I'm feeling. You have no idea."

Tracy paused, dropping her arms, leaning forward slightly. Her gaze was intent, her voice hard and low. "I know more than you'd ever imagine about what you're feeling. I was your age when I got pregnant with Ned. I was scared out of my wits. I knew about ten seconds after the wedding reception that my marriage to Larry Ashton was a mistake, and I was trapped in a situation I didn't want or know how to handle. I had not only my family pressuring me to get pregnant, but Larry's family. You think bearing a Quartermaine heir is pressure? Try walking around nine months carrying the next Lord Ashton."

"Ned is a Lord?" Lulu blinked. How had she missed that one?

"No. Long story, involves lies and blackmail," Tracy said dismissively, as if that explained everything. "Fact is, I had no choice. I felt trapped and overwhelmed and scared out of my wits. And consequently, I was a lousy mother and have nothing to show for my troubles but a strained adult relationship with my son and no relationship at all with my granddaughter."

"You're definitely making the case for me keeping this kid," Lulu said sarcastically.

"When I got pregnant with Dillon, I was married to a man who not only didn't love me, he actively hated me. His girlfriend/mistress was married to Ned. My life was total chaos. My relationship with my family was tenuous at best, and frankly, pregnancies over thirty are not exactly risk-free. Another situation where I agonized over whether to keep my baby."

"Again, not making a big case for keeping the kid."

"Dillon was the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life," Tracy said softly, honestly. "I wouldn't have survived the next few years of my life if I hadn't had him with me. I wouldn't have had a reason to…"

"Well, that's charming and I'm sure it will make a great movie of the week someday—" Lulu started to stand. She wasn't at all comfortable with this walk down Tracy's memory lane. She didn't like Tracy. She didn't want to share confidences with her, girl talk, hopes and fears. That was what a mother was for, and Tracy had no right—

"Those were the two _good_ pregnancies," Tracy whispered. "Sad as it is, the situation when I got pregnant with my daughter was much, much worse."

Lulu sank back onto the couch, stunned. She stared at Tracy, trying to figure out the game she was playing. She couldn't see any sign of artifice, or even emotion, on her step-mother's face. "You had a daughter?"

"I got pregnant between Ned and Dillon," she said. "I was estranged from my family, broke and working for a large company in Europe. My money situation was less than stellar." She bit her lower lip slowly, her eyes turning away. "I was drinking more than I should have, more than I do now…"

"Whoa."

"Yeah. I got involved with a man who I never would have talked to had I been in my right mind, a man who unfortunately had a tendency to…um…" She hesitated, embarrassed, Lulu thought. "He wasn't the nicest man," she continued. "When I got pregnant, I knew I couldn't keep the child. I knew I couldn't let him know I was pregnant. I knew my family wouldn't take me back, and I didn't have the money to run away." She shook her head. "It's a bitch being dependent, Lulu. It's a bitch being broke and alone."

"Yeah," was all Lulu could say.

"Any child born into that situation would have be born into a nightmare. I knew what I had to do, and I did it."

"You had an abortion?" Lulu was stunned.

"It was quick, relatively painless, and I will hate myself forever for it. I will go to my grave thinking, I should have tried harder, I should have groveled, I should have begged my family to take me back. I should have done something, been smarter, braver, better." Tracy shook her head, her face screwed up slightly in pain.

Lulu didn't know what to say. She couldn't think of anything to say. She had a gut instinct that Tracy had never told this to anyone, that Tracy had never had a reason to tell this to anyone. She also knew if she ever breathed a word of it, Tracy would hunt her down and destroy everything she loved in retaliation.

"I know in my heart it was the best choice I had at the time, and that any other choice would have been irresponsible and wrong. And I still grieve for it twenty-five years later. I grieve for the daughter I didn't have, for the life she didn't live, for the chance I took away from her." She wiped at her eye roughly with the palm of her hand. "You need to know that, if you're going to make a responsible choice, kid. You're a decent person who has options and people coming out of the woodwork to help you though this. I'm a heartless witch with no conscience or decency. When I was pregnant, I was truly alone, and the father was a jackass who liked to hit me. I had nobody to turn to and abortion was absolutely the right choice." She breathed out hard. "…and I still haven't gotten over what I did." She stood, brushing off her trousers as if to say this was the end of the discussion. "No pressure. Just something to think about."

Lulu rested her head in her hand. She felt sick to her stomach, and the sympathy she felt for Tracy wasn't helping the headache she was developing. "It's so hard," she whispered.

She felt a hand on her hair, looked up to see Tracy's gentle gaze looking down on her. "I know, Little Lulu." Her mouth quirked up in a sad, half-smile. "It is a lousy situation."

"Yeah."

"You still want that lobster?"

Lulu laughed weakly. "I'm not hungry anymore." Then, without really knowing why, she added, "Taco Bell sounds better."

Tracy laughed and rolled her eyes. "Disgusting. My treat?"

"Yeah…" And she stood, heading out to Tracy's Mercedes to have their first lunch together as step-mother and step-daughter.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

7


	29. 027 Reverse

**Title: ** In Which Frank Capra Rolls Over in His Grave  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#27 Reverse  
**Word Count:** 10,413 words  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** The shoe's on the other foot—now it's Edward's turn to try to win Tracy's love.  
**Author's Notes: **FeySpirit gave me the idea for this story, although the members of the TQ LoveFest had some great ideas!

_Earth Project_

_Sector: A-78394-b12_

_Spirit Group: L2904d8903subC_

_Soul: #01934s394_

_Corporeal Assignation: Quartermaine, Edward L._

_Rejection Code: 392_

_Suggested Action: Corporeal intervention; re-education; termination of volunteer status as last resort._

The conference room was plush, high-tech, and decorated in varying hues of white and cream. Edward sat in the ergonomically-designed chair he was offered, took a mug of coffee, and waited for somebody to tell him what the hell was going on. He took a sip of the coffee—it was damned good. Possibly the best coffee he'd ever had, but that didn't change the fact that he wanted some answers. He hadn't been hurt, yet. Just detained. Just hustled into this conference room with no answers, no clues as to where he was, how he'd gotten here, or what they intended to do to him.

When the young man entered the conference room, Edward began to speak but was silenced with a wave of the young man's hand. He looked about forty, with graying brown hair, solid though not overtly muscular features, and strong facial features. He wore a Fioravanti suit, which meant that Edward wasn't dealing with half-pints here. Edward Quartermaine ran through the list of people who had reason to hurt him, but stopped when he realized that the opposite list – of people who didn't have a reason to hurt him – was probably much shorter.

"If it's ransom you're after, young man," he began again, blustering. "My family doesn't deal with terrorists."

The man opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, he emitted a high-pitched, almost musical screech that had Edward doubling over, hands covering his ears, wincing in pain. The man stopped immediately, placing a hand on Edward's shoulder. The pain went away immediately, and Edward shrugged the hand away defiantly.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded.

The younger man had the decency to look chagrined before pasting a pleasant smile on his face. "My apologies…" He looked down at a stack of papers in front of him. "_Edward._ I was under the impression you'd already been through the discorporation process."

"Discorporation? What the hell does that mean?" Edward was getting fed up with mysteries and the silent treatment and the sympathetic looks from strangers who wouldn't answer his questions. "I want to know what's going on. Who are you people? Why am I being held here? I know you think you can get away with something, but I warn you…my reach is not so small that I can't crush you for this—"

"Edward, please…" The young man had the audacity to sound amused. He put his stack of papers down on the desk and relaxed his shoulders. "First, let me apologize for not introducing myself. My name is Lewis. I am a processing agent here, and I've been assigned your case. I realize now that you must be very confused, and perhaps a little frightened. Normally, cases don't reach my desk until after they've completed the discorporation phase. Otherwise, it can be very disconcerting for the souls."

"What in HELL are you talking about?"

Lewis drew in a deep breath. "I see I'm going to have to revise my process here. First, let me tell you that you are in no danger here. We have not abducted you, nor are we holding you against your will."

"Then you won't mind if I just walk out that door and head on home?" Edward knew a con job when he saw one.

"You can certainly walk out that door," Lewis said pleasantly. "But you can't go home again, not just yet."

"Uh-HUH," Edward snorted.

Lewis sighed, muttering something about discorporation and sending a memo before speaking to him again. "Again, let me apologize for your confusion. I'm not generally the one who explains this process to new arrivals, but I will do my best." He took in a deep breath, as if he were about to begin a class room lecture. "The corporeal state requires careful integration in order to function. This integration is achieved through varying levels of regressive and subliminal connections, allowing the volunteer soul to achieve harmonic unity with—"

"What are you blathering about, young man? I am a very busy man, and I don't have time for this silliness."

"Ah, time." Lewis shook his head, his green eyes blinking as if reminded of something very important. "Thank you, Edward, yes. Time. You see, time here is a bit of a tricky thing, especially to one, such as yourself, used to corporeal existence. When you discorporate, you separate the connections to the corporeal body. It frees the volunteer soul to fully resume non-corporeal existence and begin the full debriefing and reassignment process."

"In English, please?"

"You died."

"I what?"

Lewis looked down at the papers in front of him. "On the morning of April 17, 2007, you drove your, erm, automobile, in to work and suffered a stroke behind the wheel. Your automobile crashed into a tree, crushing your skull and injuring your already damaged brain. You arrived at Port Charles General Hospital at 7:49 am, dead on arrival."

Edward blinked hard. Such a callous reading of horrible things! "I'm not dead. My skull isn't crushed. My brain isn't damaged." He tapped his head. "Doesn't take a doctor to see that I'm perfectly healthy. I'm fit and sound as I always was, and I demand that you let me go."

"I understand," Lewis said, as if that made any difference to Edward. "Returning to the non-corporeal state can be disconcerting at the best of times, especially for one who spent as many years there as you did. Normally, you'd have a lengthy discorporation phase—where you are allowed to slowly disconnect from the body you had grown used to. Unfortunately, in your case time…" He pointed to the Baum & Mercier watch Edward wore. "Time is an issue."

"I thought time didn't matter in this place. That's what you said."

"Actually, I said time was a bit tricky here, which it is, especially for those just returning from corporeal assignments." He sighed, taking in a deep breath. "Let me try this again. We have time. Corporeal realms have time. They just move in different ways through time than we do here."

"And this has what to do with me?" Edward folded his arms across his chest, refusing the refill on his coffee that Lewis offered.

"You. Erm, yes." Lewis picked up the top sheet on the stack of papers in front of him. "I see that you are part of Earth Project. Very impressive," he added with an admiring expression. "Very complicated bit of work. You should be commended just for the assignment. Now…" He put down the paper, steepling his hands in front of him before leaning slightly forward. "As you are no doubt aware, Earth Project has seen some trouble in the last few millennia. The design flaw in the human brain was completely unexpected, of course, and there have been several teams assigned to work on it."

"This is madness. You're trying to convince me I'm insane. This is a plot. Which one of my devious offspring is doing this? Tracy? Of course, this is just like something my no-good daughter would do."

"Ah…Tracy…." Lewis nodded, flipping through the papers to find what appeared to be a particularly interesting fact. "_Tracy_, yes. Yes, we'll get back to your daughter in a moment, Edward. At this point, rest assured that you are not insane, nor is anyone plotting to drive you to madness. Anyway, back to the Earth Project. With the advent of technology, it became increasingly obvious to the powers that be that things were progressing too rapidly. The design flaw allowed for advancement that was much too rapid, leading to imbalances between mind and body, mind and spirit. The entire process of evolution was thrown into turmoil because some prehistoric genius invented a wheel." He shook his head. "Volunteer souls, as a group, tend to be the enthusiastic sort. But this one sent the whole time-table forward ten thousand years too soon."

"And what does some entrepreneurial caveman have to do with my being held here?" Edward decided to play along, see what this clown had to say before pushing his way out of this loony bin.

"Well, the project is in chaos, as you should know. I mean, you spent seventy Terran years down there. How crazy it must be!" Lewis seemed to relax, as if he really wanted to discuss life on Earth. Then he apparently remembered he was on the clock. "Because of the chaos, and the ensuing turmoil--wars, disease, murder, sex, drugs, rock and roll--" He grinned, then wiped the smile off his face quickly as Edward scowled. "Erm, yes, the popularity of Earth Project amongst volunteers is at an all time high. Everybody wants to go there because it's a crash course-- one incarnation can shoot you through the ranks faster than four on another project. Unfortunately, the population explosion has led to some trouble with resources, with the potential of derailing the whole project. About ten Terran centuries ago, the powers that be decided to initiate a special project design to get the Earth Project back on track Specially trained operatives would incarnate on Earth in places where they could do the most good. You've heard of some of them--Leonardo da Vinci, Mahandas Ghandi, Oprah Winfrey. Most of them do amazing work while they're there, but some of them…well, we're still in the process of debriefing poor Adolf." He shook his head, a sad tired expression on his features. "You see, Edward, the operatives on this team can do great good, or great harm. And that's where you come in."

"Are you trying to tell me that I'm actually some elite agent sent down to Earth to resolve the planet's problems?"

The laughter that bubbled out of Lewis, despite his best efforts to control it, was insulting at best. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no…." He tried to stop laughing, but couldn't help himself. Finally, he poured a sip of water from a crystal decanter into a glass and drank it in one shot to steady himself. "Oh, my. Yes, um, no, Edward. You are a volunteer. Granted, a highly skilled and experienced volunteer, but no. Not an agent." Lewis pressed a hidden button in the top of the conference table and a holographic image appeared, hovering about the center of the table.

Edward felt his heart catch, his breath skip a beat, as he took in the image before him. It was vaguely formed, shimmering white with dancing rainbow colors flittering across it. The image hummed slightly, an otherworldly music that made him want to cry. "Is that…is that a soul?"

Lewis smiled indulgently. "That's what we all look like, Edward. No more, no less. Before we assume the trappings of corporeal life."

"You look corporeal enough," Edward said gruffly, embarrassed by his reaction to the thing in front of him.

"I work in Intermediary Processing. Many volunteers have difficulty adjusting between corporeal and non-corporeal existence. It's comforting to see familiar sights. It helps them readjust properly. Anyway, this entity is known as--"

Lewis emitted another high-pitched, musical noise, shorter and more succinct than his first. Edward assumed it was a name of some sort. "Charming," he said dully.

"On Earth, you knew this agent in this form." Lewis clicked another button, and the image coalesced into a more solid shape, colors began to darken, resolve, sharpen. Finally, there was an image of a dark-haired woman before them.

Tracy Quartermaine, specifically.

It was Edward's turn to laugh, a hard, unkind laugh. "Are you truly trying to convince me that my daughter, my conniving, no-good, hare-brained daughter, is really some cosmic secret agent sent to be the next Ghandi?" He snorted. "Now I know I'm in a loony bin, and you're the head loony."

"Tracy has trained for three lifetimes for this assignment, Edward. You were assigned to her team with a single purpose. To raise her in a manner that would allow her to fully realize her goals while on Earth." There was a condescending and not-altogether complimentary tone to his voice. "You begged for that assignment, I might add."

"Are you seriously expecting me to believe this nonsense?"

"In your current condition? Hardly." Lewis sighed. "I am trying to be patient here, Edward, but we are dealing with serious issues. I think you deserve to know that had you done your job properly, you would not be in my office right now."

"So you're telling me that I've been terminated?" Edward laughed at his own joke. "The dead man is being terminated. How clever."

"The fact is, Edward, if it were up to me, I'd just forward your case upstairs, have you stripped of your volunteer status, and move on with my day. But unfortunately, in her corporeal state," again, he said her soul name, seemingly (or not at all) oblivious to the pain it caused Edward's ears. "Has grown emotionally fixated on you. It happens more often than we would expect, especially between parental and marital partners." He sighed. "The bottom line, Ed? You caused this problem, and we believe you're the best person to fix it."

"And what mess has Tracy gotten herself into now?"

Lewis didn't even try to suppress the glare. "Maybe I should clarify the situation for you. Tracy went to Earth with two specific jobs to do. She failed one of them completely, and that cannot be resolved. The other mission she is now in the process of completing, but with a point of view so skewered by your abusive treatment of her that it will have exactly the opposite effect of what she was sent there to do."

"Leave it to Tracy to screw up even the simplest things."

Another sigh. "Let me show you some projection videos made prior to Tracy's entry into the corporeal world. I might add that you were part of these projections, fully briefed and cognizant of your job duties before you were incorporated." He flipped a button on the table, and the image of Tracy disappeared, only to be replaced by a fully three-dimensional image of the Quartermaine mansion. It was perfect to every detail--right down to the grain of wood in the banisters.

The only difference was the light.

_The house was filled with sunlight, dazzling and bright and cheerful beyond recognition. It was late summer, Labor Day, and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren were all there for a barbecue._

_Inside the mansion, a lone woman sat on the couch, reading the New York Times. Her hair was shot through with grey, soft around her shoulders in a stylish cut that flattered her full features. She wore a casual white pantsuit, loose but fitted, and a simple diamond choker around her neck. She was alone in the quiet room, peaceful and content in her solitude._

_Two little girls ran in from the rose garden, covered in dirt, roses dangling lopsidedly from their tiny hands. They were giggling, brown hair in braided pigtails, with dancing cartoon fairies on their pink and white jumpers. They ran to Tracy and jumped on the couch next to her._

_"Granny!" the taller of the two girls cried out. "We brought you some flowers from Granny Lila's garden."_

_Tracy put down her paper. "Oh, these are beautiful, Brittany," she said. The children clambered over her, destroying her white suit with their dirty hands and legs. But Tracy didn't seem to mind as the second of the two handed her a fist full of drooping flowers. "Lisa, these are just gorgeous. Prettiest flowers I've ever gotten."_

_"Prettier than Grandpa Luke gives you?"_

_"Prettiest in the whole wide universe," Tracy said solemnly, sniffing the roses in a long, dramatic breath._

_A handsome man came through the garden door, breathless and tan, wearing tennis clothes. "There you are! I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't see them come in until too late." Ned Ashton leaned over, opening his arms for the two young girls. "Come on, monsters. You know you're not supposed to bother Granny when she's working."_

_"I was done with work, Ned," Tracy said, grinning as the girls ran off to hug her son._

_"She wasn't working, Daddy," Brittany said, her earnest words punctuated by giggling._

_"Nuh-uh, Uncle Ned. She was just reading the paper. See?" Lisa pointed to the newspaper, which had been shredded by tiny shoes as the girls had climbed on to their grandmother's lap. "Oh."_

_"It's okay, Ned, really." Tracy leaned back, her white suit covered in tiny dirty handprints, smiling graciously. "I always have time for my little girls."_

"Oh, this is a load of malarkey," Edward says. "My daughter is nothing like that…that Stepford Tracy."

"Remember, these were projection images. This is what was supposed to happen." Lewis narrowed a single eye in Edward's direction. "Had the incarnation gone according to plan."

"And I suppose you blame me for that?"

"Let me show you another projection vid, Ed. This was one you actually helped design."

_Tracy stood in front of the United Nations building, her breath coming deep and slow. Dillon, in a suit and tie, stood next to her. His hair was insane, spiked and streaked and outrageous, but he seemed grounded, happy. _

_"Nervous, Mom?"_

_"Why on Earth should I be nervous," Tracy bluffed, then laughed as Dillon raised a single eyebrow. "I'm petrified."_

_"You'll do great," he said, hugging her fiercely. "You deserve this."_

_"I wish Ned and Allison could have been here."_

_"You know they'll be watching it on TV, Mom. It's the most important day of your life. Ned would be here if Lois was strong enough, and Allison is going to move heaven and earth to get to that television set in the village." He adjusted his tie. "And of course, your most camera-ready child is here to share your moment in the spotlight."_

_There was a pause, then Tracy said softly, "I wish Mother and Daddy were here."_

_Dillon smiled at his mother, an expression full of unvarnished love and affection. "Grandmother and Grandfather would have been so proud of you, Mom. We are all proud of you."_

_Tracy kissed his cheek, then pressed the palm of her hand flat against the spot she'd kissed. "I love you, Dillon," she said, her voice a whisper against the New York City traffic._

_"I love you, too, Mom."_

_A man in a turban and an expensive suit came to greet them. "Ms. Quartermaine, are you ready to address the assembly?"_

_Tracy laughed nervously. "Not in a million years. But I guess since I'm here…"_

_"Please follow me."_

"Oh, now you really can't expect me to believe that Tracy would do anything in her life that would warrant her addressing the United Nations."

"After college, the Tracy in these projections worked for your company, ELQ, before establishing her own firm, Q2. She was more interested in research and development and wanted to work more in the field of alternative fuel sources. With your blessings, she set out on her own. It was Q2 that finally came up with a viable alternative to the problem of non-renewable energy sources. With that discovery came a chance to resolve the problems in the Middle East, as well as to clean up the environment. _Not_ that that ever happened," he said with an accusing look at Edward.

"Tracy never showed any such interest."

"No, she wouldn't have shown _you_," Lewis agreed.

"What you're suggesting is downright foolish. She doesn't have a bit of scientific aptitude, and when it comes to business," he hesitated, his eyes closing slowly. "She doesn't have a lick of competence." It was an old story, and even as he told it, Edward knew in his heart it was fiction. He'd refused her early requests--no, that wasn't right. She hadn't requested, she'd begged, as early as high school, for a chance to work with him. She'd spent hours as a little girl mimicking him, reading the sections of the _Wall Street Journal_ he tossed aside when he was done with them, even though she couldn't possibly understand what it meant. She'd worked hard in school, even though he rarely encouraged her, and passed college--married with a small child--with excellent grades.

He never asked her what she was interested in. He never asked for her opinions.

Here, in this gleaming white room, it was hard to stay subjective. He looked back on his dealings with her through clean bright vision, and saw a truth he did not like. Had he ever really given her a chance? He thought back on all the times she'd managed to get control over ELQ--usually, the company was on the verge of disaster when he'd let her in. Always, she'd managed to drag the company through the worst of it, despite the criticisms and accusations heaped on her.

What could she have done with a real chance, with a viable company, instead of a rotten carcass already plundered by the likes of A.J. and Lorenzo Alcazar?

"This is preposterous," he said, but his bluster came out half-hearted at best. "I don't believe it. Tracy could have never achieved those things you suggest. Tracy was a complete loss as a human being." The words tasted sour in his mouth, but still he continued. "I don't believe it."

"Of course you don't."

Four little syllables, a damning quartet of words. Of course you don't. Of course you don't believe your own daughter capable of any good. Of course you don't believe your daughter could have achieved wonderful things. Of course you never gave her a chance, you criticized, you mocked, you knocked her down every time she tried to stand.

Edward didn't know what this voice was inside of him, this accusing, horrible voice that looked at his life in such clear, concise terms. But he knew he didn't like it. "So," he said, changing the subject. "Who is this Allison person Dillon mentioned?"

"Tracy's daughter, and his half-sister."

He snorted. "Tracy doesn't have a daughter."

Lewis looked sadly at his charge. "No, Edward. Tracy doesn't have a daughter." He touched the button, and a different image showed up. Tracy, young and vibrant. Beautiful.

It was nothing to see that this was _his_ Tracy. There was something very different from the projection Tracy, something truer, more authentic to his understanding of what his daughter might be. She was in a doctor's office of some sort, although he couldn't be sure. All the notices on the wall were in Italian, and Edward, unlike his daughter, had never learned to read or speak the language.

_The woman next to her was heavy with child, a dark-skinned Italian woman in her mid thirties. Tracy fidgeted in the seat next to her, bored with outdated copies of Italian women's magazines, nervous and wanting to talk._

_"Hi," she said. _

_"Scusi?" The Italian woman said. "Non parlo inglese…"_

_Tracy smiled, and continued on in English. "I don't know why I'm so nervous," she said, her words high-pitched and rapid. "This doctor came highly recommended. He's one of the best in Portofino." She laughed uncertainly. "I'm sure I won't be his first, you know?"_

_The Italian woman, tired of trying to gesture than she didn't understand a word Tracy was saying, gave up and went back to her magazine. Tracy continued as if she hadn't noticed._

_"I suppose I should be worried. I mean, a lot of people would think I'm doing something wrong. I know I'm not. I've thought this out thoroughly. I've weighed my options, and this is the most practical and humane thing." She shuffled in her seat, shifting her weight from one side to another. "I'm not ready to have a baby right now. I've got a failed marriage behind me, and a son I barely know. I just…" She smiled weakly at the Italian woman, who just shook her head and continued reading her magazine. "I suppose I could go home… I know Mother would take me in. She wouldn't…No. No, this is the right choice. I don't want to be a burden on Mother and Daddy. I'm going to make it on my own, and I can't with a baby right now. I can't go crawling back home, begging for help, the spoiled brat begging Mommy and Daddy to pull me out of the fire again." She wiped a tear away from her cheek. "Besides, Daddy would never speak to me again. Daddy would hate me," she whispered._

_"Tracy?" The nurse said in a thick Italian accent. She held a clipboard in her hand, and motioned for Tracy to follow her into the examination room._

Edward stared, aghast, at the image as it held in place before him. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to feel.

"That was Allison she aborted," Lewis said gently, as if it needed to be said. "Allison, Tracy's second child and only daughter. Fascinated with research and development like her mother. Drawn to medicine, like her Uncle Alan. Wife and mother to one daughter," he nodded to Edward. "That was her in the earlier vid, Lisa. Anyway, her volunteer work would take her to South Africa, to help with the AIDS crisis. During her stay there, she would discover a simple plant. It's just a weed, really, nothing important. Except that it contains the properties that can treat AIDS, cancer and Downs Syndrome." He shook his head sadly. "That was a huge setback," he said.

"Surely, if you people have this planned out so carefully…"

"Free will is one of the major components of corporeal life. Our volunteers have to be free to make mistakes, otherwise they will never learn, never grow. It's just that…" He sighed. "Some mistakes are larger, and more difficult to solve."

"Are you saying that, if I'd been a better father to Tracy, she would have had the courage to come home? That she wouldn't have aborted the baby?"

"I'm saying that if you had completed your mission, Tracy would have never considered abortion. She would have been married to Allison's father, and very happily so." Lewis sighed. "Edward, Allison was a big loss to this particular project, but we have back-ups for disease control. But we have bigger problems, Edward. Tracy's current situation is far more urgent."

"That girl…that little girl with the braids? She never lived?"

"None of them did, Edward. Ned and Lois broke up before Brittany could be born, and Allison never lived to give birth to Lisa. They were just regular volunteers, and will be reassigned, of course. But are you beginning to see what a huge differences your actions make in the corporeal world? Why your part in this plan was so important?"

"I wanted to make her stronger," he said weakly. "I didn't want her spoiled…Her mother spoiled her so…"

"Her mother loved her. You loved her, too, in your own way. But unfortunately, you loved money and power more. You taught your children some very powerful lessons, Edward. And that's why we're here."

"Oh, what now?" he asked weakly, not wanting to know what else he'd done wrong. All his life, he'd believed, no he'd been certain his choices were right. His children feared him, yes, but they were tough. They were strong, survivors worthy of bearing the Quartermaine name. Even Tracy…. "What horrible thing have I caused now?" he whispered.

"Your death came at a most inauspicious time. When Tracy lost her connection with Dillon--a highly skilled volunteer who came in to pinch-hit at the last moment when things started going down hill, by the way--well, your interference caused Tracy to lose Dillon, the process was beginning. But when you died without giving her the one thing she wanted, the one thing she'd truly desired all her life…" Lewis shrugged. "It wasn't pretty."

"Oh, for crying out loud. I left her ELQ in my will. What more does she want? An engraved invitation to the ball?"

"She wanted your love." Lewis's voice was soft, not accusing, not judging. "Of all the human emotions, love is the most powerful and potentially the most destructive. The atrocities committed for lack of love, from the frustrated desire to be loved, are unfathomable to non-corporeal beings."

"Tracy knows I loved her." But Edward knew in his heart that was not true. He knew she wondered… He had always known how to manipulate her desire for his love. It kept her vulnerable, kept her controllable. "Of course she did," he lied.

Lewis heaved a huge breath. "I didn't want to do this, but you leave me no choice." He tapped another button, and suddenly Edward was bombarded with the memory of every hard word, every cruelty, ever unkind thing he'd ever done to his daughter. They came at him in a heartbeat, each more horrifying than the last, a mind-numbing repetition of vicious and unthinkable parental cruelty. He covered his ears, not wanting to hear them, not wanting to believe himself capable of such things. But they were persistent, they never stopped, each unique, each cutting and destructive, each undeniably his own words, his own actions.

He thought he could not take another moment, that his entire mind would explode from it. He wondered how she'd survived it, how she'd managed to bear up under such a constant and unwarranted attack.

And then Lewis touched another button.

The voices in his mind were no longer his, but hers, a thousand different versions of Tracy, from childhood to the day before he died, a thousand different hues of her voice, each saying the same thing, over and over and over.

"I love you, Daddy."

A thousand times, in a thousand different ways, _I love you, Daddy._ She said it constantly.

How had he never heard? How had he never believed?

Edward rested his head in his palms, tears streaming down his face. He was remembering, remembering the before time, remembering the planning, the excitement, the challenge. Remembering the enthusiasm he had had for this life, for this chance to do something right. He looked up to see that the image in the hologram had changed.

"_I love you, Daddy." She was standing before his grave, flowers in her hand. "I know you never believed that, but I do. I always loved you, even when you turned me away. I wanted you to understand that I…" She looked away, dropping the flowers randomly at the grave. "What do you care, Daddy? I've told you I loved you a million times. You never listened then. Why should you listen now?"_

_And then she was gone._

Edward stared blankly at the grave. He saw his life, his world, in that single stone block.

"It's not my fault," he said weakly. "I tried to teach her to be strong. I tried to--"

"We are really in a time-sensitive situation here, Edward," Lewis said gently. "Time passes a little more quickly here than in the corporeal plane, and well…Tracy has been busy."

"Busy?"

Lewis grimaced, then continued. "During her younger years, Tracy had dealings with a certain crime Family in New York City, the Solietos. For a while, she ran the Family, but eventually stepped down out of concern for Dillon's safety." Lewis flicked the button on the table, and the hologram disappeared. "I'm going to lay it straight on the line for you, Edward. Tracy had great potential on Earth, and most of that was stifled for you. On the other hand, your presence also created a certain stability for her, however dysfunctional that stability. In her need to gain your acceptance and approval, Tracy passed over many opportunities, held herself back on more than one occasion. When you died, without giving her your approval or love, she lost that one stabilizing need. She was never going to win your love. She had nothing to hold her back, nothing to keep her rage in check."

"What about Ned? What about Dillon? Certainly they--"

"Ned and Dillon no longer have anything to do with their mother, thanks in part to you r interference. As far as she's concerned, Tracy has no one and nothing to lose." Lewis shuffled through his papers, found one with a huge red asterisk at the top of it. "In December of 2007, Tracy Quartermaine divorced her husband Luke and returned to Manhattan. At that time, she reconnected with the Solieto Family, unseating Gina Solieto in a stunning show of cruel and brutal efficiency. After regaining control of the Solieto resources, she turned her attentions to Port Charles. Within five years, she had unseated the Alcazar and Ruiz Families completely and went after the Corinthos Empire." Lewis turned pale. "She succeeded, Edward. She had nothing to lose and everything to prove. She was vicious. She was ruthless. She didn't care who she hurt along the way, and the list of people she hurt was very long, Edward. Very long."

"So now she has power," Edward said bitterly.

"If she couldn't have your love, Edward, she wanted the one thing you did love. Power. And she has lots of it. There isn't a person in Port Charles who doesn't owe her money, or isn't obligated to her in some way. She runs that town as her own playground. She's never satisfied. She wants more, and she's become quite reckless in her bid for power and wealth."

"And what…what do I have to do with this now? If I am, as you say, dead…"

"In twenty-four hours, Tracy is going to make what looks to her like the deal of a lifetime. A shipment of weapons, hijacked from a Columbian drug trafficker, will make its way into her possession. She will sell these weapons to the wrong people who will then resell them to even worse people, the very worst people, Edward." Lewis leaned forward, his face darkly serious. "Do you remember your history, Edward? Do you remember what happened when the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated?"

"World War I?"

"The people who buy these weapons will assassinate a man, a minor political figure in the Third World with very powerful allies. There will be retaliation, and then more retaliation. In six months' time, the world will be engulfed in a global war that makes WWI look like a sock hop." Lewis shook his head sadly. "Nuclear winter, Edward. The human project will be derailed back to the Ice Age if we're lucky, completely halted if we're not."

"Dear god…"

"We've put a lot of time and resources into the Earth Project, Edward. We don't want to see it all go up in smoke." He stared at Edward, piercing through his shock with a hard, serious expression. "When one of our agents goes rogue, it's a logistical nightmare. Napoleon shut down the entire program for a hundred years."

"But Tracy isn't a Napoleon. She doesn't have armies. She isn't a Hitler. She's just a woman, a small town mob boss."

"It's a different world, Edward. You don't need armies to destroy the world. You can do that with a laptop computer…or the right shipment of weapons."

Edward felt himself shrinking into his ergonomically-designed chair. It was comfortable. It was sleek. He wished the floor would open up and swallow the damn chair with him in it. "What do you want me to do?" he asked in a very small voice.

"It's very rare, but sometimes souls will reincorporate for a short time, return to the corporeal world to perform one last act, to deliver one last message. We want you to return to Earth, to return to your daughter."

"You want me to haunt Tracy?"

"We want you to earn her love. Touch her heart. Remind her of who she could be, who she should have been." Lewis's voice turned hard. "And mostly, we want you to stop her from selling those weapons to her intended buyers." He handed Edward a sheet of paper. "These are the names of the buyers who will then resell the weapons to the assassins. If you can, have her destroy the weapons. If you can't destroy them, here is a name of an agent at the DEA who can help her safely dispose of them."

"If I have an agent at the DEA, why can't I just contact him? Why don't we just shut her down before she can cause any damage?"

"Because Tracy will be the only person who can see or hear you. And because she deserves better," Lewis said bitterly. "She was a good agent, and she deserves better than to die in a volley of gunfire just because you--" He stopped himself. "Sorry, Edward. Everybody deserves a chance at redemption. Even you, and even your daughter." He held out his hand to Edward, who hesitated before shaking it.

Good firm grip, he noticed.

"Good luck, Edward."

Edward saw the room dissolving around him, blurring into a cloud of images. By the time he realized that it was himself and not the room dissolving, he thought he heard Lewis adding, "You'll need it."

He found himself in Lila's rose gardens. He felt himself, patting his chest and thighs to see if he was solid. The sun was warm, a beautiful spring day. He almost danced with it, the smell of the roses, Lila's roses, fresh in his nostrils. He walked toward the house, sure it had all been a dream, and was just about to convince himself that Alice had slipped something in his martini when he saw the little crucifix in the ground, and the stone marker next to it.

_Here lies the Willoughby's dog. It pissed on my mother's roses one time too many. RIP Precious. TQ _

Edward gulped. It wasn't the martini. When he walked into the house, the first thing he noticed were the guards stationed at every exit. Big, burly men in sunglasses, with visible weaponry. Edward sank into the shadows, not wanting to mess with that firepower. He stayed there, lurking, as a racket from the other room came towards the closed door.

Tracy swept in, looking younger and healthier than she had for years. Her hair was dyed a soft honey brown, and she'd obviously had a face-lift, but her body was in peak physical condition for a woman her age, and she looked at least ten years younger than she was. She was followed by a very harrowed-looking Luke Spencer, who seemed at least ten years older.

"Damn it, Spanky, you may have everybody else in this town cowed, but I'm not going to take this from you."

"Luke, Luke, Luke," Tracy purred, stroking the cheek of one of the burly guards as she passed through the doorway. "Do you think the fact that we once had a little marital arrangement gives you special privileges? _The Haunted Star_ has strong sentimental value to me, as you should know. And when you don't bring me my cut of her profits, well, I take that as a personal insult." She tossed herself on the couch, lifting her hand for the martini that Alice had miraculously appeared out of nowhere to deliver. The large woman backed away from Tracy without a word, cringing, never even raising her eyes, much less her voice to the smaller woman. Tracy continued without even noticing. "Now, you need to have those receipts in my manicured hands no later than six tonight, _with interest_, or I'm just going to have to take drastic action."

"What kind of drastic action, Spanky? Shut me down? Shoot me? Who cares, Spanky? Who the hell cares anymore?" Luke's face was red, and the spikes of his hair quivered with each gesture of his hands. "You've gone nuts, you know that, ex-Wife? You think you can treat people like this, you think you can get away with it…"

"I _can_ get away with it, _Ex-Husband_, and I do." She shook her head, tsking as she did. "You never did know how to act like a husband, did you, Luke? My new husband is so much more loyal, so much more obedient. Where is my husband, Alice?" She leaned back to face the larger woman, who cringed at the sight.

"He's in Mrs. Lila's study, Ms. Quartermaine."

"Fetch him for me," she said. "Stick around, Luke, if you want tips on how a real man acts."

"You're going down, Tracy," Luke sputtered as he headed for the door. "I swear to you on Laura's grave, you're going down."

:"Say hi to the low-lifes for me," Tracy waved sweetly as he left, then sighed once the door was closed. "Annoying little toad," she said darkly. "Angelo, get me a real martini. I should have had that woman shot years ago. Would have, except she used to amuse my mother. Byron, have we heard from the buyers yet?"

"They have us down for a nine am pickup."

"Ugh. Couldn't make it for eleven, could they? No, they have to schedule it opposite my standing hair appointment. Max, call Dierdre and see if she can fit me in at one, will you?"

"Yes, Ms. Quartermaine."

Edward stared as this cadre of men jumped at his daughter's whim. She sat on the couch like a queen on her throne, while everyone rushed to beck and call. Had he not known the truth about her, he might have been impressed. As it was, he was horrified at what she'd become.

"Is that the sound of my loving husband I hear?" she said in a sing-song voice as the door opened to admit Sonny Corinthos. "There he is, my big strong handsome husband."

"Oh, my god!" Edward said before he could stop himself.

"What was that?" Tracy said, alert, stunned. Nobody else in the room seemed to have noticed.

"What was what," Sonny asked in dull monotone.

"Did you hear that?"

"I didn't hear anything, Tracy," he continued, still in that halting monotonous voice. "Maybe it's early senility."

She pasted a phony smile on her face, turning to Sonny. "Speaking of crazy, you didn't take your medication yesterday, Husband."

"I was busy--"

"You know what happens when you don't take your medicine, Sonny?" She was on her feet, catlike, pressed up against him, walking her fingers up his chest to emphasize her words. "You get cranky. You become surly and rude and unresponsive." She played her fingertips against his closed lips, her voice flirty and dangerous. "I don't like it when you're unresponsive, Michael," she whispered, pressing her body against his, kissing his lips. Sonny responded to her perfunctorily, as if each motion of his body was carefully orchestrated, perfectly choreographed. "Oooh, that's better," she purred into his lips, and kissed him again.

Edward felt nauseous. Tracy had had some losers for husbands before, but never would he have predicted her marrying a low-life like Sonny Corinthos. He felt another wave of guilt, of horror that his actions might have somehow helped bring this to fore.

"Alice, where is my husband's medication?"

"Right here, Ms. Quartermaine," the housekeeper said, stepping immediately forward carrying a silver try with a pill and a glass of water on it.

Tracy took the pill between her fingertips and brought it to Sonny's lips. "Open up, Baby. Mama has your medicine."

Edward felt his skin crawl as the former mobster parted his lips and let Tracy feed him the pill. This wasn't happening. How had she fallen this far? How had she gone this wrong?

When her husband had swallowed the pillow and washed it down with the water, Tracy kissed him again, hard, and then sent them all away. Alice, Sonny, the guards. She just sent them away, and sat on the couch, brushing her fingers through her hair.

She said she wanted to be alone, but the minute they were gone, she started searching the room, frantically, like a woman obsessed. "Where are you?" she called out. "They didn't hear you, but I know you're here. I know you're hiding somewhere."

Edward stepped out of the shadows, into the light, bringing himself up to his most imposing height. He was relieved to see her stunned expression, just moments before her cynical mask came crashing down around her again. "So. I wasn't hearing things."

"Tracy," he began, but stopped, not knowing what to say. What could he possibly say to her? I'm the ghost of your father, here to stop you from making the biggest mistake in the history of humanity? "You look good," he said, setting for the obvious.

She was scanning him critically, looking him up and down with an eye for every detail. "Amazing," she said. "You are very authentic looking."

"Tracy, I need to talk to you. I need to--"

"You even sound like him." She shook her head. "Who hired you? Ned and Skye, I'll bet. And I'm sure Dillon had something to do with it. He always was a sucker for these overdramatic pranks."

"I'm serious, Tracy. This is serious." He wanted to shake her, wanted to drag her out of her sarcastic shell, force her to see him for what he really was. "They sent me here to warn you."

"They? The heavenly angels?" She grinned. "Or the pointy tailed ones?"

Edward sighed. This was going to be harder than he expected. "Look, I know you don't want to believe me. You don't want to believe I'm here."

"Oh, I believe you're here. You're standing right in front of me. An exact replica of my sainted father, every expression perfect." She nodded her head, looking at him the way an art critic would examine a particularly fine replica of a Picasso. "Even the voice acting is spot on. Whoever hired you must have paid a pretty penny."

"Tracy, I'm your father. I gave you life. And now I'm trying to save that life."

She clapped slowly, an astonished smile on her face. "Bravo. Bravo, erm…what should I call you?"

"You used to call me Daddy," he said softly. She was so hard. So cynical.

"Okay, Daddy," she said, her voice low, her eyes mischievous. She took a step closer to him, chin down, eyes sultry. "So, you came back to save my life, _Daddy_?"

His back stiffened as she pushed against him, her body flat against his, her eyes wicked and daring. "You want to rescue me, Daddy?" She kissed his chin. "Save me, Daddy," she purred before he pushed her away from him, repulsed, horrified. "Oh, come on! Everybody whispers about it anyway. Tracy had an unnatural affection for her father, they say. Tracy was warped by her father. If you're my real Daddy, you know that we were very close." She pressed up against him again, laughing hard as he pushed her away. "Oh, come on. You're an obvious fake. What, did you think I was going to buy this? Dear Edward, back from the grave?" She laughed again, her voice hard and cynical as she spoke. "If Edward Quartermaine came back to Earth to save someone, it certainly wouldn't be me. I fall behind the brother, the grandsons, and at least a dozen mistresses. _If_ I rank that high."

"I know," he said gently. "I treated you badly while I was alive. I was wrong, and I'm here to make up for it."

"If you're a ghost, why can I feel you? Come on, my hand should go right through you when I do something like this." She reached back and swung, landing a hard slap across his face. Edward winced and shook his head. "Come on, _Daddy_, a ghost shouldn't feel a slap in the face, should he?" She slapped him again, this time harder, but he was ready for her and grabbed her hand mid-air. "Some fucking ghost," she snarled. "Now get out of my house before I have my men make a real ghost out of you."

"I know you, Tracy. I'm your father. I know things about you nobody else could know."

"Then I know you're not my father," she said bitterly, turning to pour herself another drink. "My father didn't know anything about me."

"I know you were interested in science," he said.

She turned, staring at him. "My father never would have known that."

"Unless he died, and learned a few important things he never noticed about the child he left behind."

"My school grades were sent home each term. Anybody could have seen I made good grades in science. That's nothing a second-rate private detective couldn't have figured out."

"I know you wanted to start your own company, after you worked for ELQ. You were even going to call it Q2." He grinned. "Catchy name, by the way."

"Oh, please," she said, but her face was getting paler with each revelation. "I'm sure I must have mentioned that to somebody somewhere along the line. You're wasting my time, _Daddy_. If it's money you want, you're going to have to take your SAG card and go elsewhere, because I'm not buying your act."

"When you were a little girl, we used to play tic-tack-toe. But we never used Xs and Os. We used dollar and cent signs." He didn't even know where that memory came from, but it was there and he used it. He was floundering, trying to convince a daughter he'd never noticed and never shown the slightest kindness to that he loved her, that he wanted a second chance.

She stared at him, a flicker of that old light in her eyes, faint but encouraging. "You always took the dollar signs," she whispered. "And left me the spare change."

He chuckled, reaching out to stroke her hair. But she slapped his hand away. "Anybody could have figured that out," she said darkly, turning away and downing her drink in one gulp. "Now get the hell out of my house."

"I know about Allison," he whispered, only inches from the back of her head. "I know about the daughter you never had."

"How dare you!" But she didn't turn around, didn't move. "How dare you?"

"It was in Italy. You didn't want to come home, you didn't want to beg. You didn't want to grovel." He wanted to reach out to her, wanted to hold her. "You were going to name her Allison."

"Nobody knows that. I never told anybody about that." She was shaking, her body tense and set against his touch. "What the hell are you?"

"I'm dead, Tracy. I'm dead, and they've sent me back to help you."

She pivoted on her feet, a hard look of defiance on her face. It seemed to Edward that she was fighting off tears, but he couldn't tell for sure. "My own personal Jacob Marley? Daddy, back from the grave to get his sorry ass out of the hell fire and maybe earn a few brownie points towards the place upstairs?"

"There's no hell-fire…"

"Where are your chains, Daddy? Where are the locks and the weights to drag around? Why aren't you see-through?" She brushed her hand roughly against his chest, solid and resistant to her touch. "Why can I touch you? What kind of ghost are you?"

"I don't know. All I know is that I failed you, and now you're about to make the biggest mistake of your life. You're about to do something stupid, something reckless, that will have far-reaching ramifications beyond anything you could ever imagine."

She blinked, shaking her head in disbelief. "You came back _from the dead_ to tell me I'm a screw-up?" She laughed a short, cynical laugh. "Well, isn't this a Hallmark moment?"

"No, I didn't come to tell you you're a screw up. I came to—" He floundered, a lifetime of criticism and neglect hardly adequate preparation for the task at hand. "I came to tell you I love you. I came to tell you that _I_ was the screw up, I was the incompetent one." He looked away, unable to meet her gaze. "I never gave you a chance. I never listened to you, never noticed you except to criticize. I never was the kind of father you needed."

She bit her lower lip gently, a far-off expression in her eyes. "You don't know how long I've wanted to hear those words. Pity they came too late to matter."

"Listen to me, Tracy. You hate me. I understand that. I don't blame you." He shook his head, a horrified expression on his face. "They played a tape for me, a sort of recording, of every horrible thing I ever said to you in your life. They played it all at once, so I could get the full effect." He looked up at her, desperate for some glimpse of the woman she used to be, the woman who died without his love the day she buried him, the woman she had the potential to be. "They played your words to me, too, Princess. A thousand times over, the same thing, over and over." He frowned, ashamed, unworthy. "All you ever said, over and over again, was I love you, Daddy. I never heard it. I never listened to you when you said it." He reached out, hoping against hope that she wouldn't push him away again. When she let him, he pulled her into an embrace. "It broke my heart. It broke my heart, Princess."

She shook her head, confused, concerned. "Why are you doing this to me? Why come back now? You've been dead for years. Oh, and on the anniversary of your death? Nice touch," she added with a sad laugh.

"I didn't know it was the anniversary of anything," he said honestly. "Time is…different…where I was." He kissed the top of her head softly. "I just know that tomorrow you intend to sell a shipment of arms to someone who will in turn sell them to the wrong people. Those people will then use those arms to assassinate a Third World ruler, starting a chain of events that will send the world into a new Stone Age."

"Daddy, I've got a fortune invested in those arms."

"Tracy, we're talking about the end of civilization as we know it!"

"Well at least I'll die rich!" she pulled back, fierce, unyielding.

Edward could feel his pulse racing. He had to convince her, had to show her the error of her ways. "Listen, I know what I taught you when you were alive. I know what I taught you by example. But I was wrong. I was wrong about you, and I was wrong about that. Money isn't everything, Tracy. You have two sons who love you, who want your love."

"My sons haven't spoken to me in years," she said bitterly.

"But you're still alive, and you still have a chance to fix things with them. Don't you see, Tracy? Don't you see what a gift it is to be alive, to have a chance to right the wrongs you've done? You still have a chance to be with your sons, your grandchildren. You can fix all of this, but nobody will have a chance at all if you sell those weapons tomorrow." He moved closer, pulling her into his arms, stroking her hair. "I was a horrible father to you, Tracy. I know that. I taught you to hate, to be cold and hard and distant. But you're also your mother's daughter. You have her capacity to love. I know. I saw it when you were with Dillon. I saw it with that Spencer fellow. You loved them, you did. I hated you for it at the time, tried to destroy it, undermine it. I saw it as weakness, but I know that it wasn't. Tracy, I know that that woman is still inside of you, that there's still a spark of Lila inside of you." He stroked her hair, kissed it gently. "I know she's still inside of you, Daughter. Please, don't let me destroy it. Please, at the end of the day, prove that you're Lila's girl, not mine."

He held his breath for a moment as she relaxed against him, her arms slowly moving around his shoulders. He embraced her, tentatively at first, then with real enthusiasm. She was remarkable, in her own way. He wanted her to succeed. He wanted her to be happy, despite everything that had gone wrong. He knew she could, if only she'd take this one step. "Choose love, Tracy," he whispered into her hair. "At the end of the day, it's the better choice."

"Yes, Daddy," she whispered back, and Edward felt himself dissolving, felt the light coming into him, felt the freedom from his corporeal form invigorate him. Tracy looked up at him, a look of amazement in her eyes. "Daddy?"

"I love you, Tracy. I love you, Daughter," he said as he continued to dissolve, as he became the light, as his soul released the last of its mortal connections and moved on, to whatever new adventure, he did not know.

Tracy stared for a long moment at the place where Edward had been, her breathing slow and steady, waiting for the light to vanish before she relaxed. "He's gone," she called out to the next room.

Lewis came in through the door, stretching his neck and shoulders. "Wow, I thought he'd never catch on."

The soul playing the part of Sonny Corinthos came in the room, part corporeal, part non-corporeal light. "You want us to strike this set, Boss?" he said.

"Yeah, let's get this stuff out of here." Lewis turned to the soul playing the part of Tracy. She looked really good—virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. His job was easy; she had to be convincing. "You were great, Irene."

"Thanks, Lewis. Wow, he was tough, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, I know. Some of these guys just never learn."

She was pulling off her costume, pealing the face of Tracy Quartermaine back to reveal her true soul self. They had abandoned corporeal language, and were now communicating through their own musical speech. "I still can't believe he bought all that stuff about nuclear war and a new ice age. And the whole secret agent soul thing? Come on, did we really have to go that far?"

"Subtlety is lost on this guy," Lewis said tiredly. "I've worked with him before. No matter how many times we try to teach him, he gets down in the corporeal world and makes the same mistakes." He rolled his eyes. "I've requested suspension of his volunteer status three times, but they still keep sending him down there."

"Do you think it will stick this time?"

"I'm not optimistic," Lewis admitted. "I had him back in the 1600s. He was a slave trader, and I gave him a huge production about the Civil War and all that. Next lifetime, he wasn't twenty years old and he was trading slaves again. War finally came, and the guy branches out into arms. He sold weapons during the war—to both sides."

"Some guys never learn," the Tracy soul said. "And of course, he screws it up for every other soul on his team."

"Oh, I don't know. The Lila soul did okay," Lewis said. "But the rest of them? Wow."

"A.J.," Irene said.

"Tell me about it." Lewis had resumed his non-corporeal form, shimmering as the fake Quartermaine mansion was being dismantled around them. "Want to go watch the nebulas on the other side of the Milky Way? I heard there's really great visibility tonight.

"Absolutely." She was fully free of her corporeal form now, too, and they shimmered together as they headed off to the observation areas. She hesitated, hovering for a moment as she watched the last of the set being struck. "What about the real Tracy? How is she doing?" The soul Tracy's light flickered, shaking off the last of the corporeal dressing she wore.

"She's doing okay," Lewis responded, his light shimmering to open a portal through which they could see the progress down on Earth.

"_I love you, Daddy." She was standing before his grave, flowers in her hand. "I know you never believed that, but I do. I always loved you, even when you turned me away. I wanted you to understand that I…" She looked away, dropping the flowers randomly at the grave. "What do you care, Daddy? I've told you I loved you a million times. You never listened then. Why should you listen now?"_

_Luke Spencer walked up to his ex-wife, his expression somber. "Why did I know I would find you here, Spanky?"_

_Tracy frowned, embarrassed. "Have you been eavesdropping, Ex-Husband?"_

"_As a matter of fact, I have." He put her arm in his, standing next to her as they looked down on her father's grave. "It's been a hell of a year, hasn't it?"_

"_That it has."_

"_He was quite the character."_

"_He was a son of a bitch," she said honestly. "But I loved him."_

"_I know, Mama Bear. I know." He pulled her against him, kissing the top of her head. "He loved you, you know. In his own psychotic way, I know he loved you."_

"_I wish things had been different between us," she whispered. "I wish I could have reached him."_

"_You know what, that's just what it was. What you're doing now, the effort you're making with Ned and Dillon…" He leaned back, staring at her, a look of admiration on his face. "That's what matters. That's what counts, Tracy."_

"_I just…" She hesitated. Even now, even after all the strides she made, Tracy seemed ashamed of her emotions. He had watched her since Edward's death, watched her struggling not to become her father, not to make the same mistakes he had made, struggling to reconnect with her sons emotionally. "I'm sorry, Luke. I just…"_

"_So, you know what, Spankybuns? Why don't you let your favorite ex-husband buy you a cup of coffee?"_

_She smiled, looping her arms in his. "Oh, wow. Too bad Gino is dead. I guess I'll just have to settle for you."_

"_You already did, Spanky. And aren't we both better people for it?"_

"_Don't make me puke, Luke," she laughed, and together they walked away from Edward's grave, towards that cup of coffee, and perhaps a better future._

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

24


	30. 028 Deliver

**Title: ** Deliver Us Not  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#28 Deliver  
**Word Count:** 791 words  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Tracy has a talk with The Big Man.  
**Author's Notes:** Just a little stream of consciousness thing about Tracy, just after she had the abortion.

_Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name._

Dear God, I know what you're thinking, and I want to thank you for letting me in your House. I know I'm not Catholic, but this was the only English-language service I could find. Thanks for not striking me down with a bolt of lightning when I walked up to the front door.

_Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven._

I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here. I was never particularly religious, but you know that.

What am I thinking? You already know why I'm here. You knew before I did why I came to this church, why I sat through Mass, why I'm giving up my Thursday morning to hang out with these religious old people.

You know what happened, and I'll bet the farm You've already judged me.

_Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us._

When I was a little girl, my mother always told me you were a kind and forgiving Father. That always confused me, because the father I've got has never been very kind, nor is he in any way forgiving.

He wouldn't forgive me my trespasses. I've trespassed a lot, You know.

But Mother said You would forgive me anything, if I was truly sorry.

_And lead us not into temptation…_

I never could resist temptation. And he was tempting. I knew I loved him. I knew we'd make it, that he'd be the one who could make me happy.

You know, I don't believe I was meant to be happy.

_And deliver us from evil…_

He wasn't evil. Guliano wasn't evil. Just immature. He didn't want to commit. I can understand that. And even if he did cheat on me, he doesn't deserve to be saddled with a child he doesn't want anymore than I do.

_For Thine is the kingdom…_

I know I'll never go to heaven. I know I'm a sinner. I'm resigned to that knowledge.

But I do have some sense of right and wrong. Some idea of how things are supposed to be. And children are supposed to be born to parents who want them, who love them.

How could I bring another child into this world? Don't You understand what it's like to know you're not wanted? That you're not loved? Isn't it better not to bring a child into this world than to bring one in and neglect it? How many times has my son prayed to You? How many times has he wished he'd never been born?

_And the power…_

I have no power. I have nothing that isn't doled out to me by a cold and demanding father. My money is gone—squandered by my ex-husband. My child is being raised by strangers. My hope for the future is as bankrupt as my Swiss bank account.

I'm spoiled and greedy and immature. Who am I to try to raise a child?

Everything I do turns to mud. I won't force another child into my shadow. I can already see what that's doing to Ned. I won't do it to another child, and I won't do it to myself.

_And the glory…_

I know what I tell myself out there. I know what I've convinced myself. That it's the sensible thing to do. That it's the most humane choice, the most practical choice. That it isn't a life yet.

But here, in your House, I can't lie. I know I'm sinning. I know I'm giving up my soul. I know that I will never forgive myself for this.

And yet, I won't change my mind. I won't force a child to live without love.

I have no more love to give.

I have no more love inside of me.

What I had with Guliano wasn't love. Love doesn't walk out in the middle of the night. Love doesn't make you feel small. Love doesn't make you feel used.

There is no more love.

_Forever and ever…_

I don't want to spend eternity in flames. I don't want to lose my immortal soul.

I want to believe the fairy tales my mother told me about a kind and forgiving God.

But I don't.

So I'll just say goodbye now. I'll say thank you for the gifts you've given me, and resign myself to whatever fate will come when I finally finish up my time on Earth.

I will ask for forgiveness, but I won't beg. I won't grovel, not even to You.

It's better for this child never to see daylight than to grow up begging for love, and never receiving it.

Like me.

Like my son.

_Amen._

Amen.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

3


	31. 029 Arrival

**Title: ** Coco Robichaux and the Girl in the Little Blue Hat  
**Fandom: ** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#29 Arrival  
**Word Count: ** words  
**Rating: ** PG  
**Summary: ** Tracy attends an opening night.  
**Author's Notes: ** I don't normally do crossovers, but I just got this little idea on how to connect Tracy to the YaYa Sisterhood. My timeline, based on the books, not the movie, would have Tracy as a contemporary of Siddalee (who is actually older than Sandra Bullock in the books).

I.

The previews for _Women on the Cusp_ were the buzz of New York. Tracy Quartermaine, who had about as much interest in the theater as she did in upside-down bonsai growing, barely skimmed the article as she read her daily _New York Times_ over breakfast. Another drama, another Tony bid, another group of pretentious actors emoting over the footlights.

It was only a name in the second paragraph that caught her attention, a name so individual and unforgettable that Tracy put down her coffee and started the story again from the start.

Siddalee Walker.

She frowned, blinked, and read again. "Writer/director Siddalee Walker, a Louisiana transplant, has emerged as a true force of nature on the Broadway stage."

"Well, I'll be damned," she murmured, continuing through the drivel about sets and lighting and projected ticket revenues. Okay, she paid attention to the projected ticket revenues. "I'll be damned…" she repeated.

"Something you want to share, or just contemplating your eternal reward?" Alan muttered from behind the sports page.

"Siddalee Walker is directing a Broadway play."

"Sidda who?"

Tracy rolled her eyes. "Siddalee Walker. You remember, that Girl I used to write to in Louisiana, back when I was in boarding school."

"The one with the crazy lady from the plane?" Alan rolled his eyes. "I still think Mother was insane to let you write to them."

"They were nice, and Mrs. Claiborne was not crazy. She was--" Tracy thought back to her one encounter with Teensy Claiborne, back before she'd learn to judge so harshly, back when strangers with stories could be magical and intriguing, instead of just cause for suspicion. "She was beautiful."

"What was that club she belonged to? The Woo-Hoos? The Hee-Haws?"

Tracy stared at the page, not reading the words anymore. Her mind was a million miles away, and thirty years in the past. She felt her lips forming the words of her own volition, and a lifetime of envy and admiration poured into the enunciation. "Ya-Ya!"

II.

The Petite Ya-Yas were first and foremost a captive audience. Whenever the Ya-Yas felt a surge of creative energy, whether in the form of an impromptu musical number or craft project or any other such thing, their first line of feedback came in the form of the young minds trapped and helpless in their clutches. Each new outfit, each pronouncement of innovative thought, would be trotted out before whatever available child was on hand with a "What do you think of _that_, _cher_?" immediately following the presentation.

This was always followed by enthusiastic support or, if the Petite was feeling particularly brave, a timid suggestion for improvement. Siddalee could remember with burning intensity all the times her suggestions had been followed, because those moments were always accompanied by rounds of applause and overwhelming compliments from the Ya-Yas at how smart she was, how clever, how perfectly _charmant_!

Show-off and spotlight junkie that she was, Siddalee Walker made it a point to always offer suggestions if she had them.

For the most part, as a group the Petite Ya-Yas didn't mind being creative guinea pigs. It was stimulating, and they often found themselves doing the same thing themselves--using each other as sounding boards, brainstorming partners, and make-shift audiences for all forms of creative play.

But the Ya-Yas were the mistresses of the art, and it was a rare Petite who saw themselves on a par with their mothers. The stories were Siddalee's favorites, and she could sit for hours listening to the tales of Vivi, Caro, Teensy, and Necie as little Girls in Thornton, Louisiana, or even tales of their adventures as grown-ups. One of the best, and most personal to Siddalee, stories happened to Teensy after she was already married with children. She loved to hear the tale of the Coco Robichaux and the Little Girl in the Little Blue Hat.

Teensy and her husband Chick loved to travel, and often left their kids Ruffin and Genny with the Ya-Yas while they set off on adventures of their own. It was on a trip like this to Paris that Teensy encountered the Girl in the Little Blue Hat.

Chick had flown home early from their vacation, leaving Teensy on the prowl with money and the Paris shopping scene at her disposal. Her flight back to the States was under-booked, and the ever-persuasive Teensy had managed to sweet-talk the counter agent into an upgrade. As she settled in to a long but luxurious return flight, she noticed that the first class cabin contained only two other passengers--a worn-looking businessman and a Girl in a Little Blue Hat.

Now, it didn't take Teensy long to figure out that the Girl was not traveling with the businessman. She sat alone, just across the aisle one row up from Teensy, all of nine or ten years old, dark brown hair perfectly coiffed, an expensive traveling suit of the type little Girls wore in the 1960s, spotless white gloves, and a cunning Little Blue Hat. It was the hat that caught Teensy's attention, because it matched the suit and shoes perfectly. From birth, Teensy had been a prissy dresser, a little princess who would never allow something as mundane as sneakers to touch her feet. So the sight of this young Girl intrigued her, and she amused herself on the boring flight by imagining the background of the Little Girl, whom she guessed to be the long-lost granddaughter of Edward and Mrs. Simpson of England.

Long flights being what they were, Teensy periodically dozed off, and awoke to find that the Girl had been periodically losing bits of her ensemble. First to go were the white gloves, which Teensy spied neatly tucked into the Girl's matching little handbag. Later, she saw the jacket folded and draped over the empty seat next to the Girl.

Half-way across the Atlantic, she woke to find the Girl with her tray table down, a single olive rolling back and forth across it as she played a make-shift game of table tennis with the olive as the ball and her fingers as the paddles. Teensy peeked in front of her--the businessman was fast asleep, a martini glass _sans olive_ dangling from his right hand. She chuckled as she watched the Girl play, not noticing the stewardess coming up the aisle.

It happened quickly--a misguided shot with the right hand, a slip of the left hand, and that olive was off the Girl in the Little Blue Hat's tray and onto the floor, right in the path of the stewardess's shoes. Teensy winced as the foot came down, crushing the olive into the carpeted aisle.

The Girl in the Little Blue Hat tucked her hands in her lap, assuming the most innocent look Teensy had ever seen on a non-Ya-Ya in her entire life. The stewardess stopped in disgust, picking up her feet and staring at the ground up olive on the sole of her shoe. She then turned to the dangling martini glass and the sleeping man who held it. She sighed in a very perturbed manner and took the glass from the businessman's hand.

When she was gone, the Little Girl noticed Teensy for the first time and, with a look of utmost innocence, shrugged. "Wonder where that came from?" she said.

"Must've been Coco Robichaux!" Teensy said with a knowing grin.

"Who?" The Little Girl leaned forward, intrigued, her feigned innocence forgotten as she perked up her ears to hear the tale of the naughty Coco Robichaux.

Now every one of the Petite Ya-Yas knew about evil Coco. When a dish broke, or the last bit of ham disappeared from the fridge, or muddy shoe tracks appeared as if by magic on the living room floor, everybody knew that Coco Robichaux was the culprit. It was Teensy's mother, the exotic Genevieve Whitman with her colorful clothes and free-spirited ways, who had first told the tale of Coco back when Teensy was a little girl. The Ya-Yas had pounced on the legend with a vengeance. It was Coco who first brought Vivi and Teensy together with Necie, whom they mistook for Coco in her goody-goody disguise. And over the years, the ever-elusive Coco--ageless and wicked as the day was long--passed down to a new generation of Ya-Yas.

"She's the most naughty, wicked little Girl who ever lived. She's smart, too, so she never gets caught." Teensy smiled at the Little Girl's expression. It wasn't so much shock as admiration, and right then and there she felt the surge of Ya-Ya in the air. This child, far from being a pampered little goody-goody, had fire in her. "_Ma mére_ /i. told me about Coco when I was much younger than you. I've always been hoping to meet her some day."

"If Coco was a little girl when you were a little girl," the Girl in the Little Blue Hat said skeptically. "Wouldn't she be a grown up woman now?"

"Oh, no!" Teensy put up her tray table, for story-telling required a certain amount of space to be done right, and she didn't want to chip her nail polish while gesturing. "Coco Robichaux is like Peter Pan. Nice little Girls grow up to become housewives and mothers. Wicked little Girls never get old, and Coco is the wickedest of them all. Why, I'd say she never lost her baby teeth, she's so evil."

The Little Girl started laughing at this and rolled her eyes. "That's a myth," she accused.

"Not at all. Cross my heart and swear to Judy Garland. If you ever come down to Thornton, Louisiana," she paused, adding, "That's where I'm from. Thornton, Louisiana. If you ever come down there, they'll tell you. Coco Robichaux is the real deal."

The Girl laughed again and pushed her tray up just like Teensy did.

"I'm sorry," Teensy said. "We haven't been properly introduced. My name is Mrs. Genevieve Whitman Clairborne, but my _friends_ call me Teensy."

"Hello, Mrs. Claiborne," the Girl said formally.

Teensy fixed her gaze on the young Girl. "You can call me Teensy, if you like." At the Girl's smile, she added, "I didn't get your name, _cher_."

"My name is Miss Tracy Lila Quartermaine." She frowned slightly, and added, "People just mostly call me Tracy. I don't have a nickname." Something in the Girl's tone suggested to Teensy that a nickname wasn't all the little rich girl didn't have, but she kept that to herself.

"Well, you're mighty young to be traveling across the ocean all by yourself, Tracy."

Tracy shrugged, a century of nonchalance in those little shoulders. "I do it all the time. I go to school in Switzerland and come home to New York on summers and Christmas. I had a layover in Paris," she added, explaining her presence on this particular flight.

Teensy struggled to keep the shock from her face. She knew that some people sent their children off to boarding schools, and she and the Ya-Yas had often joked about shipping the whole mess of Petites off to some South Seas island until they were eighteen, but to see a little girl in such a situation just seemed horrible to her. In her heart, she knew that no matter how tired she got of being a parent to Ruffin and Genny, she could never just pack them up and send them by themselves to a foreign country for most of the year. "Don't your Mama and Daddy come to get you?"

"My daddy is in business. He is the founder of The ELQ Company, and a very busy man. He's always in meetings and on business trips. Mother came with me the first time, to show me what to do, but…" The Girl twisted up her face slightly, frowning at the thought. "She's very busy, too, and it would be a waste of time and money for her to fly all the way to Switzerland just to get me."

"Well," Teensy said, covering her own sadness for this little Girl with an overly cheerful tone. "You are a very brave and grown-up young lady, _cher_. _Très bon._"

"_Merci boucoup, Mme. Claiborne_," Tracy said in flawless French.

"_Parles-tu francais, cher_?"

"_Je parle un peu, s'il vout plaît_," came the response, along with a giggle. At Teensy's inquisitive look, she said, "Your accent is funny."

"Well, it's Louisiana French, sugar. We speak it differently than people in Paris. Some of our words are different, and some of the pronunciations may sound a little strange." She smiled at Tracy. "Imagine if Shakespeare left England with a bunch of his friends and lived on an island far away from the rest of the world all the time until today. His descendents would speak a very different brand of English than we do, don't you think?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, my ancestors left France hundreds of years ago, and the language changed with them over the years." She nodded to Tracy. "You speak it very well, by the way."

"Thank you. I'm learning it in school. I'm going to start Italian next year, and probably German after that." She was playing with the fabric on the seat behind her, picking at it absently as they talked. "They like you to learn German first, what with it being Switzerland and all, but I like Italian better. It sounds better, and you don't spit nearly as much."

Teensy laughed out loud. "Well, that makes a lot of sense."

"Gianna, the girl who stays across the hall from me at school, is from Genoa, and she—" Tracy stopped, seeming to realize her manners. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't bother you anymore," she said shyly. Teensy recognized the look from her own childhood—it was the look of a girl who had apologized far too often to adults for just being herself. Tracy reached for a stack of newspapers in the empty seat next to hers. "Besides, I have a lot of reading to do."

"Good Lord, what is all that?"

"_The New York Times_, _The Wall Street Journal_, and _The Washington Post_. My daddy reads them front to back every single day, and I'm a little behind." She straightened in her seat. "I don't want him to think I'm uninformed." She picked up the _Times_, which seemed thicker than her thigh, and hefted it onto her lap. "Thank you for the lovely conversation," she added politely.

Teensy winked rakishly. "Well, if you read anything particularly juicy, feel free to let me know."

Tracy laughed. "I will."

The rest of the flight passed uneventfully, with the Girl in the Little Blue Hat reading one after another of those papers, front to back, while Teensy dozed in and out of sleep and the businessman began to snore. It was mid-morning when they reached Idlewild Airport, and Teensy was looking forward to a good stretch of the legs before catching her connection to Baton Rouge.

She'd lost track of Tracy in the rush to disembark, with folks coming up to hug loved ones, people pushing to the counter to get their transfer information, and the general commotion of a big city airport. It wasn't until she'd gotten her gate information that Teensy saw the last of the Girl in the Little Blue Hat.

She was being greeted by a sour-looking man in a chauffeur's uniform. They said nothing to each other, exchanged no greetings as the tall man took Tracy's travel bag and led her off toward the baggage claim area. There was no running and hugging, no parents glad to see their little girl after so many months abroad. Just a hired hand, leading her silently off to get her things, as if she were a stranger.

It was in that moment that Teensy hatched the initial plans for Operation Girl in the Little Blue Hat.

III.

The play itself was gritty, an emotional punch to the gut that affected Tracy more than she wanted to admit. She mingled with the crowd, feeling a little out of place with the artsy types who generally attended these opening night things.

She'd sworn she never use her son's industry connections for anything, but here she was, on Ned's influence, at the Tavern on the Green after party for the hottest play on Broadway. She recognized a few faces--there was that actress from _Sunday in the Park with George_. She'd seen it with Ned, mostly against her will, and found it long and tedious and depressing. There were several other actors there, none whom she recognized, although they were obviously "important" because flashes kept going off everywhere they went. She did spot Art Sulzberger, Jr. from the _Times_, and almost cornered him to bitch him out about a particularly nasty article they'd done on ELQ the previous month, but restrained herself. She wasn't here to network, and she certainly wasn't here to cause a scene. It was curiosity, mainly, a closure of sorts. She was here for one reason only--to meet Siddalee Walker.

She found her after a half hour of mingling, two white wines and a small plate of rumaki into the party. Siddalee Walker was gorgeous, first and foremost, with red hair so dark it almost looked black and the most perfectly smooth pale skin Tracy had ever seen. She had a figure that looked like something she worked for, and a smile that was dazzling and bright and imperfect. Tracy found herself smiling, too, watching as the woman spoke to some actress from the movies, the blonde who did all the accents. Meryl Streep, she thought.

But it was Siddalee who captured her attention.

Siddalee, who'd written at least once a week for seven years, long after her siblings and friends had lost interest, at one point sending more letters in a single year than Tracy's entire family combined, including Lila.

Siddalee, whose neat (if wobbly) handwriting adorned the blue and red international envelopes that came with such regularity during her school years. Siddalee, who crafted amazing tales of life and family and adventures in that exotic place called Thornton, Louisiana, pressed them onto onion-skin paper, and sent them across the seas to breathe life and joy into her otherwise dull existence.

She caught Tracy staring at her, smiled indulgently as the actress took off toward another photo opportunity, and crossed the short distance to say hello. Her accent was subtle, but Tracy recognized it as a Louisiana drawl, spicy and soft and charming. "I'm sorry…have we met?"

Tracy blushed, then smiled. "Not in person, actually," she said, extending her hand to shake Siddalee's. "This is going to sound like a line, but I'm not sure if you'll remember me." At Siddalee's questioning look, she said, "I'm Tracy Quartermaine. We used to write to each other, back when we were in..."

The rest of the sentence was lost as Siddalee's eyes grew wide in recognition, her smile enormous. She threw herself at Tracy with an "Oh, my God!" and an enormous bear hug. "The Girl in the Little Blue Hat!"

IV.

The first step of Operation Girl in the Little Blue Hat, as the engagement would henceforth be known, was to gather the support of the Ya-Yas, and by extension, the Petite Ya-Yas. Teensy came home full of tales of Paris and shopping and fun, but it was the story of The Girl in the Little Blue Hat that caught everyone's attention. Necie thought it shameful that one so young would be sent off like that, and Caro figured she had to be a tough little thing. Vivi was impressed by the Girl's manners, and all were intrigued by Teensy's insistence that this young thing had Ya-Ya potential. Each and every full-blooded Ya-Ya had an inborn radar for seeking out kindred spirits, and no one doubted Teensy's assessment of young Tracy Quartermaine for one moment.

It had only taken a little bit of inquiry while still in New York to learn more about the Quartermaine family. The company, ELQ, was a powerhouse, and Edward Quartermaine was known and feared in the state's business circles. A quick call to the business desk at _The New York Times_ while waiting for her delayed flight to Louisiana had gotten Teensy not only the name of Tracy's parents, but the address of The ELQ Company.

The first thing the Ya-Yas agreed upon was that they'd have to go through the mother, whom Teensy had learned was a respected socialite in the town of Port Charles, New York, named Lila Quartermaine. A letter was written, edited, passed around the Ya-Yas for approval, and finally sent on to Mrs. Quartermaine, courtesy of The ELQ Company.

_My Dear Mrs. Quartermaine,_

_I am Mrs. Chick Claiborne, of Thornton, Louisiana. You don't know me, but I recently enjoyed the pleasure of sharing a transatlantic flight with your daughter Tracy. During the trip, I found your daughter to be polite, charming, well-behaved, and a very pleasant conversationalist. You should be very proud of her._

_The purpose of my letter is this. While chatting with your daughter, I learned that she is currently attending school in Switzerland. I have two children of my own, and in my small circle of friends, we have between us fifteen children, boys and girls, of varying ages. All of the children were delighted when I told them about Tracy, and many of them expressed an interest in becoming pen pals with her while she is in school in Europe._

_I know that my request may seem unusual to you, but I feel that children do well to meet people from varying walks of life. I feel that Tracy would benefit from meeting children her own age who live in a place very different from the world she knows, and I am sure our children would be thrilled to learn about Tracy's adventures in Switzerland._

_If you are interested in my offer, please feel free to call me collect at my home in Louisiana. My telephone number is in the header of my stationary. My husband and I travel often, and we love to meet people from all over. If you do not feel this is an appropriate suggestion, please accept my apologies in advance. I was quite taken with Tracy in the short time I spoke to her, and hoped that perhaps she might enjoy corresponding with some of our children._

_Until I hear from you, I am_

_Respectfully Yours,_

_Mrs. Genevieve "Teensy" Claiborne_

V.

The alcove they found was quiet, and the martinis strong. Tracy and Siddalee spent a moment just staring at each other, their expressions a complex mixture of awe, embarrassment, and amusement. They'd exchanged pictures during their seven-odd years of correspondence, but that had been decades earlier, before life had had its way with them, before time had stretched and softened and creased their lives into something barely recognizable as the Girls in the Faded Pictures.

"I can't believe you came," Sidda sighed, shaking her head. "You were the last person I expected to see here tonight."

"I'm not exactly the theatrical type," Tracy admitted. "But I saw your name in the _Times_ and…"

"I wanted to look you up so many times. I would read the paper and see ELQ listed, sometimes even they would even mention your name …" There was a hint of sadness in Sidda's voice, an echo of rejection that hadn't gone away over the years. "When you stopped returning my letters, I figured, well, you'd outgrown me."

Tracy shook her head fiercely. "Sidda, no! I _lived_ for those letters in school. It's just…" She hesitated. How to tell her? How to explain to this person who lived this life of freedom and wonder just what had become of her, what kind of life she'd gotten herself into?

"I married Larry Ashton ten seconds after I finished school. I figured out ten seconds after that what a huge mistake I'd made. I was whisked off into this weird world of history and obligation and–" She bit her lip, not able to meet Sidda's eyes. "I was embarrassed. I had built it all up so much in my head, and in my letters to you. You just kept writing, wanting to know how married life was, how it felt to be Lady Ashton. I was ashamed to write back and tell you I wanted to run away. I was pregnant before our three month anniversary, Sidda. I was locked in." She shrugged. "I'm sorry. When your letters stopped coming…"

"I didn't know," Sidda said apologetically. "I figured you were too good to keep writing to some hick from Louisiana, now that you were a Lady."

"I was a brood mare," Tracy said bitterly. "My entire purpose in that family was to provide an heir…and a trust fund to be plundered." She tilted her head to the side, examining Sidda's striking features, her clear, intelligent eyes, her flawless skin. "Even after I was married, _especially_ I used to dream of running away to the wilds of Louisiana and becoming a Ya-Ya priestess. I envied your freedom." She paused for a moment, then added, "I still do, sometimes."

"Ha!" Sidda turned towards the general vicinity of Broadway and the theater that housed her play. "You saw my freedom on that stage tonight."

"Was it really like that? You always made it sound so magical in your letters." Tracy held her breath, wanting to believe, wanting to know that somewhere, magic existed, romance existed, friendships lasted lifetimes, perhaps eternity. She wanted to believe that place really did exist.

Sidda frowned, her eyes darkening as she considered the question. "It was like the play. And it was like my letters. My mother…the Ya-Yas…were unbelievable. They could be angels and fairies and wild primal goddesses in one moment, and in the next--hollow, broken, lost…" She sighed, picking the olive out of her martini and licking the alcohol off it absently. "I never knew what to expect. I had to always be on guard…just in case."

"I _always_ knew what to expect," Tracy whispered, sipping her martini. "The worst."

"I see you're still wearing a wedding ring. You and Larry worked it out, huh?"

Tracy laughed loudly. "Uh, no. No, I left Larry in the dust as soon as I could figure out my own mind again. Too late for my trust fund, unfortunately…and no such luck for my son, who wound up in boarding schools just like me. My second son stayed with me, and I'm sure I'll be seeing the six-figure therapy bills for _that_ decision, too, sooner or later."

"Wow." Sidda chuckled into her drink. "But you tried it again? Marriage, love, the whole thing?"

Tracy raised her left hand, nonchalant, and splayed her five fingers into a wiggling jazz hand. "Five times."

Sidda choked on her martini. "Oh, my god!"

"Well, the first three were the only ones that count--Number Three was the father of my younger son. Number Four lasted about 36 hours, bless his dead, rich soul, and Number Five…?" She shook her head, looking down at her wedding ring. "Well, the less said about him, the better." She glanced over at the fourth finger on Sidda's left hand. It was bare, without even a hint of a ring tan. "You?"

Siddalee looked embarrassed. "Um, no. Living with someone. Happily. He's around here somewhere—" She made to look for the guy, but Tracy stopped her.

"It's okay. I certainly didn't bring my husband. You don't have to introduce me to your…"

"Connor. Connor McGill."

"Your Connor." Tracy smiled indulgently. "Is it love?"

"As much as I can love," Sidda said softly. "As much as any of us can love."

"Amen, sister," Tracy said, downing the last of her martini. "Do you go home much?"

"Nah. Too busy. You?"

"Oh, every three years or so I get banished from the family for some wicked deed or another," Tracy said casually. "Then I kick around Europe for a decade or so until the dust settles. But mostly, I'm in New York. At home. With _Daddy_," she added sarcastically.

Sidda laughed. "So the Ogre of Port Charles is still growling, huh?"

"Well, now he has a little Ogress nipping at his heels." Tracy waggled her eyebrows. "I learned from the best."

"Ya-Ya," Sidda said softly, more to herself than to Tracy. "So did I."

"Sidda?" A young man with a goatee leaned over Sidda's chair and whispered something in her ear. He was dressed all in black, very hip and very _not_ Connor, Tracy decided. Unless Sidda was in a long-term relationship with a flaming homosexual.

"Damn." Sidda stood, her expression honestly disappointed. "We have to do some cast and crew photos for the _Village Voice_. Will you stay for a while? I want to give you one of my cards, but I don't have my purse with me."

"Yeah," Tracy said with a wave of her hand. "Go. Be a star."

"Ha! Very funny."

But Sidda was already back in professional mode, her transformation from Louisiana girl to Broadway up-and-comer subtle but undeniable. Tracy watched in amazement, motioning to a waitress for a refill on her martini.

"Oh, Trace?" It was Sidda, hanging back from the young man. "I know Mama's gonna call me at some ungodly hour of the morning for a full recap of the evening. Any message you want to give the Ya-Yas?"

Tracy laughed. She had a lifetime of messages she want to give the Ya-Yas. A lifetime of courage she'd drawn from their stories, to be used when everybody told her she was evil, when everybody told her she was wrong. Sidda was the writer, the creative one. Tracy knew she'd never be able to articulate what she wanted to tell them in a single second-hand message.

"Just tell Teensy that she finally found Coco Robichaux," was all she said.

Sidda hesitated, then grinned broadly. "Will do. _Don't leave_ without saying good-bye," she warned, and disappeared back into her moment of glory.

Tracy accepted the fresh martini from the waitress, handing her a twenty and telling her to keep the change. She was feeling expansive. She was feeling good.

"Ya-Ya," she whispered to no one in particular.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

14


	32. 030 Fall

**Title: ** As the Snow Falls  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#30 Fall  
**Word Count:** 2,465 words  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** A traumatic ordeal topples a dynasty, and forms a new and lasting bond between Luke and Tracy.  
**Author's Notes:** AU. This was going to be a much longer story, but I decided to just write the pay-off scene and the hell with all that multi-chapter stuff.

The snow was beginning to fall lightly as she walked toward the boat house. Her mother's roses were long since dormant, skeletal reminders of warmer days that might or might not come back. Tracy hugged her jacket around her, not really feeling the cold, but reacting to it anyway. She no longer believed in the promise of spring. She no longer believed in promises.

She wanted silence, something she hadn't craved since the incident. Since her abduction, she never strayed too far from bright places, never strayed too far from watchful eyes. She wasn't afraid, she told herself. Just cautious. Just prudent.

But tonight, after everything that had happened, after the subtle coup Luke had stage against her father's authority, a coup that surprisingly all the Quartermaines had joined, tonight she needed privacy.

She need space, room to digest what had happened, room to stretch out her mind enough to process the changes that had taken place.

A snowflake fluttered down onto her cheek, just below where her eyelash brushed the pale flesh under her eyes. She moved to wipe it away, then hesitated. She let the warmth of her skin melt it, let it lay wet and dying against her cheek. She didn't want to push against nature anymore. She was content to let what died die. She was content to let things unfold, now, because she knew in her heart she was powerless to change what was.

She heard his footsteps on the ground behind her. It was funny how attuned she had become to sound. During her ordeal, she'd lived for sound, had been the prisoner of sound, had become the sound. With only a sliver of light pushing through the cracks in the boards of her prison, with barely enough air to survive, her stomach painfully empty and her throat dry and cracked with dehydration, sound was all that seemed real. The sound of birds outside the cabin where he'd held her. The sound of crickets at night, when the light no longer came through the cracks, when it got so cold she felt she would never be warm again. The sound of her breath through the tube he'd left her, the sound of the air sucking in and out, never enough.

She felt the panic starting again, the random and brutal terror that gripped her at the most inappropriate times. She hugged herself hard, her head low against her chest, praying she could calm herself before he reached her, before he saw her naked and vulnerable against the snowy night.

Tracy had just enough time to straighten up before he was at her side, before he was walking silently next to her, his steps matching hers, his breath steady and musical against the sound of the falling snow.

Breathing made music. Snow made music. All life was music, she thought. Once upon a time she would have mocked such a thought, but Tracy Quartermaine had a new understanding and appreciation of things.

His music is beautiful, she thought absently as they continued to trudge slowly toward the water. She'd known it instinctively for years, back when she spoke before she thought, back when she drowned out the sound of snow falling, pushing it aside to make room for more "important" things. She'd known his music was in sync with hers long before that night on _The Haunted Star_. In her bones, in her cells, she knew that they always sang when they were together, even when they hated each other, even when they were just random strangers reaching for the same elusive prize.

"You should be wearing a coat," he said, moving to take off his heavy coat and wrap it around her shoulders.

At another time, she might have refused, or protested, or made a joke of it. Now she just accepted his gesture, breathing in his scent from the heavy wool collar that tickled her jaw. "Thank you," she whispered. She rarely spoke above a whisper anymore. Nobody questioned it. They gave her room. They avoided her. They didn't look her in the eyes anymore, as if they were afraid of her. Afraid of what she'd survived, afraid that they could no longer see the monster in her eyes that they'd convinced themselves would always be there.

People didn't like change, and Tracy was changed. Irrevocably. Undeniably changed. Not even God recognized her anymore. "Thank you," she said again, this time for what he'd done, for what he'd said, even after she'd begged him not to say it. "Thank you for tonight."

"You're not mad at me?" Luke watched for the shake of her head, then pulled his light jacket tighter against him. "I'm sorry, Tracy, but I had to do it. I couldn't let Edward get away with his part in all of this."

"Daddy never intended for what happened to happen," she said softly, knowing it was the truth, knowing the truth was about as important to her now as the snowflakes melting on her hair and cheeks. Both were utterly, cosmically important…and not important at all. Ephemeral, transient truth, which melted away with the first warm breath that blew across its surface.

"It was Edward who set up ELQ to lose that subsidiary. Edward who forged those emails making it look like you orchestrated the deal. Edward who got you ousted, and let you take the blame."

"We've been playing hardball for years, Luke. It's what we do." She shrugged slightly, raising the collar closer to her skin, breathing his scent in deeply. "He was just being Daddy."

"Well, _Daddy_ is the one who got Wayne McAfee laid-off, and Daddy is the one who set you up to take the public blame for it." Luke had his arm around her now, pulling her against him, resting her head against his chest as they stood and watched the water together. "It should have been Edward buried in that pit for two weeks, not you." The rage was still there, coloring his music, punctuating his sounds with hard, dark crescendos and decrescendos. "That son-of-a-bitch wanted revenge against the person who lost him his job. It should have been Edward who suffered, not you." It was pain in his voice now, the pain of a man who had already lost one woman he'd loved and who had feared the worst for another woman he'd grown to love.

Tracy felt oddly calm through his diatribe. It was just another kind of sound now, his words more snowflakes melting against her senses. Wayne McAfee was a lunatic. Wayne McAfee haunted her nightmares. Wayne McAfee stole her freedom from her, stole her security and her illusions of safety, even her ability to sleep through the night without a light on.

"Daddy wouldn't have survived," she whispered. "Daddy wouldn't have lasted."

"I know," was all Luke said.

"I won't press charges."

Luke nodded, brushing the flakes of snow from her hair with the pad of his thumb. She wore it down now, soft against her shoulder. She hadn't colored it since the incident, and already strands of grey were beginning to mingle with the warm coffee colored waves. "You won't have to. Between Alan and Ned, and young Spielberg, I don't think Edward is going to get away with much from now on."

"Didn't hurt that not only did Daddy's little stunt get me kidnapped," Tracy said blandly, watching the light dancing on the water. "But it lost the family millions in future revenue when he let AltaG get sucked away from us."

"All to make you look incompetent," Luke said, shaking his head and kicking a pebble into the water.

"Doesn't matter," she murmured. "How are they?"

"Discussing the future of ELQ. Demanding Edward step down as CEO, and quite long overdue, I might add…"

She nodded, wondering when talk of the family business had become so exhausting. Just the thought of ELQ tired her now, and she found she no longer had the appetite for the antagonism she used to have. It used to be like caviar to her, like ice cream and sweet fresh watermelon on her tongue. Now the fighting tasted stale in her mouth, bitter and salty and better left to others who still enjoyed it.

"Ned suggested putting you back in."

"No," she said, shaking her head fiercely. "My name is shot. The shareholders won't stand for it--"

"Edward made that move, not you. He did everything he could to make it look like you were double-dealing, working with the competition, and--"

"And nobody is going to know that outside the family," she said vehemently. "If what he did becomes public knowledge--" She shook her head again. "I won't press charges, and I won't let him be ruined."

Luke sighed and pulled her tighter against him. "I won't fault you for your loyalty, Spanky, no matter how misguided it is." He kissed the top of her head. "And no matter how much that bastard father of yours doesn't deserve it."

"He'd never survive jail, and he'd never survive the scandal." She leaned into him, enjoying his warmth, comforted by the strength of his arms around her, the familiar safety of his scent. "It's bad enough the family knows. He looked so small tonight."

"He's a small man," Luke said darkly. "With a small soul and a small, small heart."

"You can't unmelt the snow, Luke," she knew she sounded foolish, didn't really care. "And you can't change what he did. But thank you. For what you did, for everything you've done throughout this ordeal." She looked up at him, noticing for the first time the flecks of snow on his brows. She smiled in spite of herself. "Nobody ever fought for me like that. Nobody ever came to my defense like that. Thank you."

"I didn't want him to get away with it," was all he said, but his eyes were sparkling in the moonlight. "Wayne McAfee was a psycho. But your father…."

"Daddy is what Daddy is, Luke. We're not going to change that."

"Well, I'm just…" He hesitated, turning to face her full on, pulling her into his arms completely. "I'm just glad we didn't lose you."

"Dillon told me you were a complete pain during the manhunt. Mac was just about ready to ban you from the whole thing." She put her arms around his neck, torn between the desire to rest her cheek against his chest and the pleasure of just gazing up at him.

"We were in the middle of a divorce, Spanky," he said, hiding behind humor, behind nonchalance. Tracy wanted to stop him, wanted him to be real, but knew she couldn't change Luke anymore than she could change her father. "When you went missing, I was prime suspect numero uno. It was in my best interest to bring you back alive and preferably in a condition to exonerate me."

"I see." She blinked slowly as the snow began to fall again, a little harder. It was getting colder, and she was grateful for his extra body heat against her.

"Well, that's what I told myself. Right up until the day they found your car. And the shoe." He squeezed tighter. "Then it was too real, Spanky. I couldn't tell myself it was a stunt after that. Then I got scared."

It wasn't a choice anymore. She rested her cheek against his chest because she had to, because she needed the pulse of his heartbeat against her, because she couldn't bear the separation anymore. "I know…." She understood fear intimately now, understood what it could do to the mind and spirit, if given free reign. "I'm sorry."

"What on Earth do you have to be sorry for, darlin'?"

She laughed softly, still near his heart, still holding on for warmth, for the safety she craved. "I don't know. It seemed like something to say."

"When we found you…" His words were tentative. They hadn't discussed her ordeal, except in the broadest terms. Not while she was in the hospital, nor since she'd been home. It was too raw, too fresh in their minds. Words seemed vulgar, too harsh and ugly to be used on something so tender and exposed. Luke pressed on, choosing his words carefully. "I saw you, before the cops pushed us out, before they brought the paramedics in. I saw you, Tracy, and my god…my god, Tracy." He was crying now, and she let him hold her, surprised at how gracefully she greeted his tears. "I've seen a lot. I've done a lot." He was kissing her forehead, his tears dripping hot onto her skin as he did. "But nothing has ever scared me more than what I saw that night."

"Shhhh…" She looked up at him. His tears were melting like snowflakes, she thought absently as she kissed them away, as she kissed his mouth, as she breathed in his music. "Shhhh."

"I don't want the divorce," he whispered into her, his lips forming the words against her mouth, his breath intermingling with her own, condensed and cloudy in the frigid December air. "I don't want the divorce, Spanky."

"I'm afraid of the dark now," she said plainly. "I want my husband with me when I sleep."

"Any monster is gonna have to get through me," he said, his eyes closing, his heart melting like the snowflakes. "Nobody's gonna hurt you ever again."

She smiled against his lips. "You can't make that promise," she said, loving him for his foolishness, for his Quixotic naiveté. "Just sleep in my bed, and keep me company when it gets too scary."

He kissed her again, a lingering, beautiful thing. She'd kept herself sane with dreams of kisses like this, kept her hopes alive imagining his taste, imagining his scent, knowing in her heart he'd rescue her.

He'd saved the world. Saving one woman shouldn't be too hard.

"It's getting cold," he whispered. "I think it's safe to brave the lion's den again."

"I'm not afraid of lions," she said, allowing him to link his arm in hers, allowing him to lead her back to where her family waited, stunned and shocked and struggling to digest a new image of Tracy, a new version of reality that didn't quite jibe with what they'd always understood. "Just the dark."

"Well, let's go face those lions, Spanky. And then we'll brave the dark together."

And that night, later on, after they'd found themselves and their love, after they'd faced the lions and braved the monsters, Tracy lay in her husband's arms, listening to the music of his snores, watching the snow falling through the bedroom window.

And for the first time in months, for the first time in her life, maybe, Tracy Quartermaine wasn't afraid of the dark.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

7


	33. 031 Knife

**Title: ** Beautiful Flaws  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#31 Knife  
**Word Count:** 4,165 words  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Luke has made many mistakes in his life, but none as serious as this one. Can he redeem himself in time to save Tracy from her own grief?  
**Author's Notes:** AU. Sorry to throw another seriously angsty piece at you so soon, but this just came out. WARNING: Character death (not Luke or Tracy).

Just because he was drinking didn't mean he was drunk. Luke took another swig of the scotch, a hard ugly burn against his throat, and stared at the nothing in front of him. It was a fairly decent nothing, so it kept his attention long after the scotch stopped tasting good.

Who was he kidding? The scotch never tasted good. It was bitter and burned as it went down his throat, cheap stuff compared to the hooch he got from EddieQ's primo stash. The Dixie Chicks wailed in the background, and he wondered when Coleman had gone country.

Then he remembered he wasn't at Jake's. He wasn't in Port Charles at all, and he found as he tapped the glass on the bar for another round that he couldn't quite place the name of the town in which this fine establishment was located. And it didn't really bother him all that much, because one crappy bar in a forgettable burg was pretty much like all the rest.

The Chicks were singing an old Stevie Nicks song, sad and profoundly depressing to him in his current state. "Mirror in the sky, what is love," the cute little loud-mouth blonde sang. "Can the child within my heart rise above?"

"Damn musicians," he muttered to his drink, wishing it wasn't such a quiet night, wishing there would be a brawl, or a hold-up, or anything to take his mind off his thoughts. He wanted to be away from his head, into his body, but the alcohol seemed to be drawing him further inside with each sip.

"I've been afraid of changing cuz I built my life around you," the pretty blonde with the twang sang. "But time makes you bolder. Children get older, and I'm getting older, too."

"Shut up," he whispered to the music. He swore he could feel her eyes on him. Swore he could hear her breath in those chords, her sighs between the verses. "Damn women."

"You said it, buddy," the not-Coleman behind the bar said. He looked nothing like Coleman, but he might as well be. He had that same Coleman way of wiping down the bar, of standing, of breathing. Luke began to get angry at the thought of this fake Coleman, standing and breathing there, like he owned the place.

"Stay away from my wife," he blurted, then blinked. That had been over a year ago. And it had been his fault. His stupid idea to put Coleman in Tracy's bed. Who knew she'd like it? Who knew he'd like it? "Keep your hands off of her," he added for effect, despite the confused look of the not-Coleman.

"No problem," Not-Coleman muttered. "You doin' okay?"

"No thanks to you," Luke mumbled. He wasn't really tracking anymore, and that was just fine. He just wanted to look at his scotch, to watch it in the glass, watch the liquid slide down the inside of the glass as he drank deeply, watch it coat the surface with its sticky residue. "She doesn't love you," he added for good measure.

"Dude, I don't even know your wife."

"Well, you should. She's a remarkable woman." Luke took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. "She's amazing, that wife of mine."

The bartender nodded slowly, as if taking care of the lunatics at the bar were a normal part of his job description. "Then you're a very lucky man," he said as he took the bottle out of Luke's reach and tucked it safely under the bar.

"I'm a moron," Luke spat into his drink. "And she was…"

"Remarkable?"

"Yeah…" Luke was playing his finger along the rim of the glass. The bar was dark, and mostly empty except for a couple of businessmen with loosened ties nursing drinks and staring at their laptops. "People move right through you, ya know? They're like air—you breath them in, and just push them out again."

"Uh-huh…" Not-Coleman looked around, his eyes darting from the neon Corona clock on the wall to the door. "We're gonna have last call in about a half hour. You want me to call you a cab?"

"It was an honest mistake, you know. Just a minor error in judgment." He pushed the glass away, leaning back so the barstool balanced precariously on its back two legs, his arms stretched stiff before him, palms flat on the bar. "It wasn't supposed to go down like this." He pulled forward, letting the stool wobble under him until it settled flat on its legs again. "Marry her, get the fifteen million, quickie divorce. Easy as pie."

"Uh, yeah. You want some pretzels? You've been hitting the scotch pretty hard…"

"She was magnificent. Everything I did, she had an answer to. Every nasty little scheme, every sneaky little plot—my Spankybuns could match me tit for tat. Amazing." Luke grinned, eyes seeing straight through the bartender to the little sitcom flashback he called his marriage. It was in vivid color before him, the truth of how badly he'd fucked up. "I am the lowest dog who ever lived," he added for good measure.

"I really wouldn't know."

"Did you ever just forget you were awake, forget that the words you were saying were real? Did you ever just open your mouth and hear the end of your life on the tip of your tongue, just hanging out there waiting to destroy the only good thing you've managed to hold on to?" He didn't wait for an answer. Of course Not-Coleman knew what he was talking about. Bartenders knew about pain, about the drama of human foolishness… "I got away with murder, you know. She let me get away with just about anything." He downed the last of his scotch. "Anything but that."

The bartender leaned forward on the bar. It was obvious this guy wasn't going to stop talking, and well, it was more interesting than cleaning out the tap. "You wanna cup of coffee? I'm not gonna let you drive like this."

"He was everything to her. The only unconditional love she ever got in her whole, hard life." Luke grinned, shaking his head. "Course, she screwed that up on her own, the minute he fell in love. Poor Spankybuns could never stand competition, even from her own daughters-in-law. But they still had something special, Spanky and that kid. Despite everything she did in the name of motherly love—posting pictures of his girlfriend on the Internet, trying to bust up their marriage by cutting him off financially, running her over with her car—" Luke frowned. "No, wait. That was the other one. Jenny." He shook his head again, trying hard to clear the cobwebs. "Can't keep it straight, ya know? She's had a long career of destroying her sons' relationships."

"Well, I can see where that would drive you to drink…"

Luke laughed. "No, no, no. That's just part of my precious pink popsicle's charm. A little quirk of personality that makes her all the more delicious." He stopped, coughing slightly, choking slightly, hurting so hard suddenly that he couldn't breathe. "Damn it," he muttered, looking for his scotch, looking for somewhere to be that wasn't _him_. "Damn it to hell," he added for good measure.

Not-Coleman drew in a long breath. One of the businessmen on the other side of the bar was packing up his laptop, tossing bills down on the bar to clear his check. The other looked like he was wrapping things up, too. "Is there anyone I can call?"

"There's nobody to call, Coleman. Wait, Not-Coleman. There's nobody left who would take my call in that house."

"What happened?"

"I said the wrong thing to the wrong impressionable kid at the very, very wrong moment." He lifted the glass to his mouth. It was empty, but that didn't stop him from tipping it upwards, optimistic about the chances of some dregs remaining to help him over the line into complete alcoholic oblivion. "He listened to me, that Young Spielberg. He took my advise—hell, it wasn't advise. I was goading. I was drunk and angry, and I took it out on a kid. Told him he was spoiled, worthless. Told him he never was going to do anything with his life because he was so used to living off the fat of his rich, powerful family, and that if he had any sense at all, he'd pack a duffle bag, walk away from all that money and comfort, and do something useful with his life."

"Bet Spanky wasn't happy with that." Not-Coleman didn't know why he was encouraging this guy. He had things to do. It was almost midnight, and he didn't want to be here all night cleaning up because some loser with family problems sucked him in to his drama.

"He thought he could do it on his own, without his family's money and influence." Luke put the glass down a little too hard, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. "Hell, the kid spent six months in a penthouse in SoHo when he was eight, and thought that made him streetwise." His head was beginning to hurt. His eyes wanted to close, they were dry, but every time he shut them, he saw her face, saw the pain, saw the utter anguish in those lovely blue eyes.

Luke hadn't pulled the knife. Luke hadn't staged the mugging. But in Luke's mind and heart, he knew he had murdered Dillon as surely as those punks in SoHo. He looked up at Not-Coleman, begging with his eyes for more booze, for anything that would make him stop seeing what he saw when he closed them. "One more for the road?"

"Sorry, dude. Just coffee after 11:30. House rules."

"Bastards barely left enough of him for his mother to identify," he muttered softly as Not-Coleman went to get a cup of coffee.

The bartender brought the coffee, putting it down in front of Luke, a serious expression on his face. "Man…" he murmured. "That's harsh."

"Yeah."

"And she blames you?"

Luke tilted his head, taking the coffee even though he didn't want it. "Worse. She blames herself. I wish she'd blame me. I wish she'd crucify me, knock me to my knees like she's done to so many people in the past." He took a sip. It was black, no sugar, and pretty nasty, but he drank it anyway. "But she didn't. She was hysterical in the morgue, then nothing. She didn't cry at the funeral. Didn't seek revenge, other than cooperating with the police."

"Did they find the guy who did it?" Not-Coleman asked.

"Nah. Maybe they never will. Who knows?" Luke took another sip, wincing against the heat and the taste. "I have very little faith in the NYPD, sir," he added.

"So…" Not-Coleman watched the guy finishing the coffee, grabbed the pot and poured him another cup without asking. The other businessman had left by now, and frankly, he was ready to close down and make this day go away. But he couldn't just send him out into the streets the way he was. He could walk in front of a bus, or into another bottle. "You're just…taking a break from Spanky now?"

"I can't…I just…" He sighed. "I'm not good with the 'being there for the ones I love' thing."

"But I thought the marriage was just about the fifteen million."

"So did I, Not-Coleman. And there's the rub, you know?" Luke downed the coffee in two gulps. "I was not supposed to fall for that dame. No, no, no, no, no. Mrs. Spencer's blue-eyed boy does not get mixed up with that type. This was all business, no pleasure."

"But she's magnificent," Not-Coleman reminded, wiping the ring from the bar where Luke's scotch glass has left a watery circle on the surface. "That's what you said."

"And that's what she is," Luke agreed. "And how can I be with her, knowing that her son never would have been in that alley, never would have met up with those guys, never would have wound up with a knife skewered in his gut, if I hadn't said what I said?"

"Does she know? I mean, about what you told the kid?"

"Oh, yeah. She knew. And before Dillon got killed, she was all about the punishment." He had an almost merry look in his eyes at the memory of Tracy's rage, but it faded like everything else. "Then…nothing. Blank eyes, empty expressions. She's dead, buddy. She's just dead inside now, and I did it to her."

"No, the guy with the knife did it to her. You ever figured maybe you might be able to make it better? To help her with it?"

"Where'd you get your psychology degree, Einstein?" Luke said angrily. "Nothing's gonna make it better. Nothing I say or do will ever make it better."

"Well, you sure aren't making it better sitting in a bar getting shit-faced while your wife deals with this all by herself."

"She's got a crapload of relatives…."

"Not her husband…"

"'Course, they're blaming her. Blaming me. Blaming everybody."

"Except the guy who did it."

"I left her alone with those vultures."

"Not cool, man," Not-Coleman said, taking the cup from Luke's shaking hands. "You want another?"

Luke seemed distant for a moment, as if he were hearing the bartender through a great depth of water. Then he shook out of it. "Uh, no, buddy. No. I think…I think I need to go home."

Not-Coleman suppressed a smile. "You want a cab?"

Luke shook his head. "I have never been more sober in my life," he said, and meant it. He'd left her. It had only been a day, but it was enough. Enough to show her he didn't care, enough to show her he didn't care what happened to her, how badly her family treated her. "Thanks for the coffee. How much do I owe you?" He tossed a twenty and a ten on the counter, ignoring the guy's comments that that was way more than the bill, and headed out of the door.

He took the back roads, drove slowly and cautiously. He knew he had enough alcohol in his system to warrant a DUI, and the worst thing he could do at this point was have to be bailed out of jail. Or rushed to the emergency room. So he took his time, and got to the Qmansion at just after three in the morning.

It was good that he was so late, good that he could avoid unpleasant conversations, accusing questions. He didn't want to get into another fight with EddieQ. It wasn't that time anymore, and what he wanted was to see his wife.

He didn't knock when he went to her room. It was dark, and his eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. When they did, he realized she was not in her bed. He scanned the room for motion, and found her sitting in a chair near the window. The moonlight cut a swath of silver-grey light across her features, and for a moment, Tracy looked ancient, hollow, ghostly. Then he blinked, and there she was, his wife, his nemesis.

He wanted her more in that moment than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. It wasn't sex or passion or even love. It was something deeper, more primal. Something connected between them that was so subtle and deep he'd never noticed it until it was gone.

Until he'd destroyed it.

And now here he was, coming back, coming home, the guy who never came home until he was good and damned ready.

He thought of Laura. It was brief and it was against his will, but it came nonetheless. He thought of how many times he'd watched his ex-wife sitting, just like this, her expression vague, as far away as if she were on Pluto, rather than across the room.

Tracy was so much nothing like Laura that it would be comic, were it not so sad. Tracy was his soul mate, not Laura. Tracy was his match, his equal and his ideal. And as much as he loved Laura, as much as he'd always love Laura, he knew in his heart that she was no more right for him than he was for her. They had always been that way—loving in spite of nature, not with it. Bending and stretching to accommodate the differences, never quite fitting perfectly even in the best of times.

Tracy fit like a glove, custom fit to match his every imperfection with beautiful flaws of her own. No matter how they tried to mix it up, they always fell back into place. Even when they didn't want to. Especially when they didn't want to.

He wondered when he'd started loving her, realized he couldn't find a date or moment or event that could match the starting of passion, of need, of desire. He had always loved Tracy Quartermaine, even before he ever met her.

"Hi," he whispered.

She didn't turn. She just kept staring out that window into the moon-swept night. "You're home," she said blandly.

Her voice was cracked, as if gone far too long without having a drink. Luke's mind clicked on that thought—after her initial fit of inebriation the day she found out of Dillon, Tracy hadn't done much drinking at all. He wondered if she'd eaten tonight. She'd skipped dinner the night before, and suddenly Luke was feeling very Papa Bear about his Mama Bear. "I'm home," he replied.

"It's kind of soon, isn't it?" Still she didn't turn, didn't face him, didn't to anyway to physically acknowledge his presence aside from her brief sentences. "Usually you're gone a couple of weeks."

He shrugged, crossing the short distance to her side. "The open road didn't hold the same allure this time as it has in the past," he admitted, squatting down next to her chair until they were eye to eye. He balanced himself by putting one hand on the arm of the chair, and used the fingers of his other hand to stroke the hair from her face. "You're up late," he said.

She merely shrugged. If his touch affected her, she didn't show it in the set of her jaw.

"Couldn't sleep?" he prompted, but she responded with a stiff shake of her head and nothing else. "Well, maybe you should try again, sweetheart."

"Ned brought Brooke Lyn by today," she said in that same monotone. It was random enough, but it was something. "She got a call-back for Julliard."

"Well, isn't that something?" He eased down onto his knees, age and gravity wreaking havoc on his squatting abilities. "Ned must be very proud of his girl."

"She doesn't know if she wants to go there. Not sure that's the path she wants to take with her career."

"It's a tough decision," Luke agreed.

"They're all tough decisions," she said softly. Luke noticed her fingers, gripping the arm of the chair tightly, white-knuckled and stiff against the padded surface of the Biedermeier. "Where to go to school, who to love, what to have for dinner." For the first time, she turned to him, fixed those cool, empty eyes directly on him. "It's all a tough decision, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he nodded. His hand was flat against her cheek now, fingers laced through her coffee-colored hair. He wanted to kiss her, to pull her to him and hold her there forever. He wanted to fix this. But there was no fixing something like this, and he knew it. "Still, I'm sure it was a lovely visit."

"It was awkward," she said. "Nobody knew what to say. I never had the relationship with Ned I had with Dillon." She paused, catching her words, catching her breath as it stopped in her throat and begged for release. "I could talk to him about anything, you know? Not in public, but when we were alone. When we weren't fighting." She raised her hand, catching the fingers of his hand where they were in her hair. "Why were we fighting again?"

"Who knows," Luke said softly, squeezing her hand gently. "He knows you loved him."

"I know."

"He loved you, too, Tracy."

"Alan went back to work today," she said, changing the subject with such abrupt speed that Luke blinked. "He took as much time off as he could, but they needed him."

"It was good of him to be so supportive of you, sweetheart." He was watching her face now, trying to catch a glance of the woman who fired his passions, who matched him on his own playing field. But she seemed lost, trapped in that shell of mourning.

It was mourning. Luke knew a thing or two about grief, how it worked and what it did to a person. He knew, or at least he'd been told, that even pain this deep would eventually subside, and the mourner would find their way back to the human race.

But now, in this dark room, staring at her haunted eyes, he wondered if anybody knew anything at all about what it was to lose someone. Each grief had its own flavor, its own properties, unique and distinctive. Time heals all wounds, they said, but how can there be one magic bullet to cure something so profound, so individual and personal, as grief?

"You should get some sleep," he whispered again, rising to stand beside her. "Let me tuck you in."

"No, I'm all right. You go to bed."

"Spanky…" He hovered, not knowing what to say, how to deal with this. He was good at starting things, and pretty good at wrapping them up. But dealing with the aftermath—well that was not his specialty. "I'm sorry."

"For leaving, or for coming back?"

"For everything. For my part in what happened to him…" He knew that it was lame. Such apologies were weak and pathetic, and rarely accomplished what they set out to do. "I never meant to…"

"Maybe I should go to bed," she said abruptly, standing so quickly that he almost lost his balance. "Thanks for stopping by to let me know you were back."

He caught her wrist, stopping her, pulling up behind her to rest his chin against her cheek. "Let me stay," he whispered. "It's too cold outside to sleep alone." Before she could protest, he continued. "I promise I won't try anything funny."

"I can't…"

"I know. Neither can I. It's just…" He turned her to face him, tucked two fingers under her chin, lifting her gaze until they were looking into each other's eyes. "I loved him, too, Spanky. I miss the hell out of him."

She just nodded, her lips pressed tightly together.

He kissed the top of her head, holding her for a moment before taking her hand and guiding her to the bed. "What side do you sleep on?"

"The right," she said, and together they moved to the right of the bed.

He helped her with her robe, noticing for the first time that she wore only a man's pajama top. It was lightly colored and covered with old-fashioned film reels. He didn't ask. Everybody got through how they got through, and Tracy was no different.

She caught his glance. "Alice didn't get around to the laundry today," she lied.

Luke chose to believe her and said nothing as he tucked her into the bed. On his way around the foot, he kicked off his shoes, then his pants and shirt. By the time he was on his side of the bed, force of habit had him tugging at his shorts, but then he thought better of it. She was pretty fragile right now, and his nudity, no matter how platonic, might make her uncomfortable. So he pulled up the covers and sheet and slid in next to her.

She was all the way on the other side of the king sized bed, her body held tightly in a fetal position, facing away from him. He inched over until he was behind her, molding himself to her form, cradling her in his. It wasn't a come on. It was protection. It was two souls crouching together in the storm, waiting for the winds to die, waiting for a time when it was safe to lift their heads again and survey the damage.

"I love you, Spanky," he whispered into her hair. He'd said it before, even meant it on occasion. But tonight, this morning, it was the truth. It was a truth so simple and undeniable that it rocked them both to the cores. "I love you."

She breathed in deeply, her shoulders rising slightly with the effort. Her hand moved slowly until it rested on his arm, the one that was holding her, the one that was protecting her against all the monsters inside and out.

"I love you, too, Luke."

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

12


	34. 032 Torn Mature

**Title: ** A Very Good Afternoon  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#32 Torn  
**Word Count:** 1,213 words  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** It began with a torn stocking…  
**Author's Notes:** LuNacy Lust. Oh, yeah. Somewhat kinky sensuality; no sex.

_It began with a torn stocking…_

Tracy sat on the wrought-iron bench in her mother's rose garden. The day was warm enough, so she dropped her right shoe off her toes, dangling it for a moment before allowing it to fall onto the cobblestones. She stretched her leg out, noting the ugly gash in the hosiery, a small circle revealing the pale flesh of her ankle through the sheer material tapering into a narrow rip that crept from her ankle half-way to her knee.

She cursed the vine that had caught her as she strolled, mid-day, through the memories. Tracy didn't wear pantyhose. They were vulgar, cheap and uncomfortable. Garters and hose were civilized, a nod to a more cultured age. Besides, they made her feel sexy as hell, even when the only person who saw them was her.

"Damn," she sighed, staring at the rip. She ordered these from Paris, and this particular shade had been on backorder since Lincoln had been in the White House. "Damn." She stretched her toes, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight on them.

Tracy looked around. She was alone in the garden, alone on this beautiful sunny afternoon. She reached below her skirt, lifting the hem up until she could reach the clips on the garters. With deft, slender fingers, she unhooked the belt and eased the hose downward. Bending slightly, she rolled the silky fabric down her thigh, over her knee, and then down her calf. Finally, her leg was free of the silk, pale against the dark fabric of her skirt. She smiled, feeling slightly decadent. How long had it been since she'd run barefoot in her mother's garden? She couldn't remember, but it felt wonderful.

She leaned back on the bench, stretching her legs—one covered, one naked—on the seat in front of her. Leaning back, she rested her arms behind her, allowing the sunlight to play on her face, closing her eyes, feeling the difference, feeling the breeze, and the roughness of the wrought iron on her bare skin.

It was delicious, she decided, and wished she could go bare-legged every day. Nice as the silk was, sexy as the garters were, there was something primitive and freeing about this natural feeling. She lay there for a long time, letting the sunlight play over her, enjoying this breather from schedules and schemes and the general dramas that came with being a Quartermaine.

It was only when his shadow fell on her that Tracy noticed her husband standing there. Perhaps she'd fallen asleep. She held her torn stocking in her fist, the length of it trailing in the dust.

He said nothing to her, and she said nothing to him. He was watching her with that look he got sometimes, that mixture of hunger and amusement and arrogance. She caught his glance lingering on her bare leg and had to force herself not to pull back, not to sit up and hide her nakedness from him.

It felt so lewd, more than if she'd been completely undressed, having him stare at her leg that way. She held her breath, barely breathing as he reached down and took the torn stocking from her hand, lifted it to his check, smiled in a knowing way. He moved easily, casually, to where her legs draped over the arm of the bench.

He lowered himself to one knee, taking the foot that still wore the pump in his hands. She refused to let him get to her, swore she wouldn't be affected as he eased the pump off her foot and placed it neatly on the ground next to him. She closed her eyes as he began to massage her foot, his hands strong and warm and confident as they eased away tension she didn't know she had. Before she knew it, his massage had expanded, upwards, to include her entire foot, above her ankles, her calf.

She wasn't going to moan. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

Luke had repositioned himself, giving himself better access to her leg, stroking up her thigh with long, practiced motions until he brushed clips that still held her remaining stocking place.

Tracy caught herself, adjusting her bare leg, not wanting him to feel so comfortable, not wanting him to think he had a right to anything more than she gave him, of her own free will.

He chuckled at her modesty, hooking his finger tips under the top of her stocking, playing against her bare skin, tickling her mercilessly, taunting her with his touch. With a deliberate snap, he unhooked the garter and began rolling the stocking slowly down her leg. She felt her breath catching in her chest at the slow, sensual movements—the feel of the silk against her leg, the increasing warmth of sunlight on her bare skin, his hands warm and rough, commanding and sure, as he lifted her foot onto his shoulder and kissed the inside of her calf once it had been freed of its clothing.

He was too sure of himself. Too damned proud of his ability to arouse her, to taunt her without ever giving her satisfaction. His tongue was playing against her ankle, teeth grazing and nipping at the sensitive skin. He was toying with her, and for the moment, she felt resigned to let him. She was content to relax in the sunlight with a handsome man worshipping her legs, kissing them and stroking them.

But no more than that, she knew. And when he moved, when he pushed for too much, as she knew he would, she stopped him with a bare foot against his chest. They stayed there for an eternity it seemed, although it could have been just a heartbeat. His eyes were dark, wanting, and she knew she could have him in this moment if she wanted to. It was secluded here, and nobody was in the house. How much more would it be to let him ease on top of her, let him continue the agonizing strip-tease he had already started with her clothing?

She considered it, in that heartbeat that lasted a thousand lifetimes. Her body wanted it. Her legs wanted his lips on them again, and other parts of her were definitely interested in getting acquainted with this arrogant Romeo.

She pushed gently on his chest, her decision made. Theirs was far too complicated a relationship already, and she wasn't going to let him gain hotly contested leverage for the price of a quick liaison in the garden on a lazy afternoon, no matter how aroused she was.

He grinned, knowing the moment was gone, knowing he'd get no further with her, and gently gathered her feet together and placed them gently on the bench. Then he took the good stocking and rolled it neatly, handing it to her.

The torn one he folded and tucked into his shirt pocket with a wicked grin.

And then he was gone, and Tracy was alone in the garden, bare-legged and lazy.

She smiled, shaking her head at the thought of him. The sun felt amazing, and she had nothing to do. Closing her eyes, she reflected on stockings and sunshine and the joys of dozing in the garden on a beautiful afternoon.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

4


	35. 033 Danger

**Title: ** Casual Cruelty  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters: ** Tracy Quartermaine  
**Prompt: **#33 Danger  
**Word Count:** 5,601 words  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Luke comes clean with Tracy about Laura.  
**Author's Notes:** I've been resisting this, but seeing the clips of Laura's descent into catatonia forced me to go down this road. I'm not going to speculate. I'm just going to write. Warning: Chock Full O'Angst.

It was turning cold when she found him, alone on the pier, his legs dangling over the water. The sun had set only an hour earlier, but already what little warmth the November day had held was dissipating into the chilly promise of even colder weather in the coming weeks. Tracy paused, watching him before she approached, weighing her options carefully.

The moon was low in the sky, casting a clear, silver sheen over the pier, reflecting from the water onto everything, including her husband. She turned the word over in her thoughts. Husband. Luke Spencer was many things, but Tracy wondered if maybe the using the word husband to describe him wasn't just a bit too generous. Mongrel, jackass, liar--these all seemed more appropriate to her ears at the moment.

It was quiet tonight, one last clear, mild evening before winter blew in for real. She would have expected to find dozens of people strolling along the water, lovers and hoodlums and people with too many thoughts on their mind to remain indoors.

But it was just them, Tracy Quartermaine and her aging danger junkie of a husband.

She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. It had been a frustrating day, the kicker to a long and crushing week. She was tired, and her feet hurt, and she wanted to be home nursing a dry martini rather than here on this damp dock wanting more than she knew she would ever get.

If Luke noticed her arrival, it didn't show in his posture. He sat on the pier, slumped really, staring blankly out on to the inky rolling water. His hair was white with moonlight, and he'd pulled the collar of his heavy jacket up against the night air.

It was the quietest she'd ever seen him, at least since they'd been married. She rarely saw him like this, off-guard, not performing for the crowd. She wondered who he was underneath that mask he wore, and if she might like that person he hid so carefully from the world. Then she shook herself, remembering what he'd done, remembering that she was only here because they needed to talk, to break the icy front that had formed between them.

And if he wouldn't come to her, then she had to go to him.

"Hey," she said as she crossed to his side, slipping out of her pumps before lowering herself to sit next to him, dangling her feet over the edge of the pier where he sat. It was the first sound she'd uttered to him, the first word in five days that she'd spoken directly to him.

She wanted to stay silent, to keep herself behind this wall of pain and rage and humiliation. She'd walked around in a stupor since he'd returned, doctor and drug and hope in his wake, turning Port Charles upside down in anticipation of Persephone's return from the Underworld.

The news was all over town. Treatments had begun on Laura Spencer. Saint Laura had a chance, and hope was on the lips of every man and woman over a certain age who'd had the privilege of sharing space with this paragon of grace and beauty.

Lips that went silent whenever Tracy entered the room.

The new Mrs. Spencer.

The white elephant in the middle of the room, an unavoidable barrier in the road to bliss and happiness for Luke and Laura Spencer.

They didn't say it, but they expected a divorce. They expected Tracy, for once in her miserable evil life, to do the right thing.

To step aside. To pull away and let this wonderful couple resume their former glory once the expected miracle occurred.

Tracy stared out onto the water. "Any news?" It felt forced, sitting here, asking him about his ex-wife, his angel, the love of his life.

He shook his head, still silent, still not facing her.

Tracy drew in a deep breath. "I'm trying, Luke," she whispered. "Give me something to work with." She waded through the emotions roiling inside of her, the resentment and terror colliding in her stomach like so much poison. She was trying, making a damned effort here. Tracy Quartermaine didn't fold, and she didn't make the first move. She didn't apologize. She didn't beg. "Please."

Luke said nothing.

"Fine," she muttered. She didn't need to be here. She didn't need to be kind. She could go home, get drunk, and randomly fire a hundred people with a single email if that what's she wanted to do. She could close down a factory and destroy the economy of a small town if she chose to. She was not without her own brand of power, she thought as she leaned back on her hands. It was an awkward position, age and gravity making her attempt to get up more difficult than she'd like.

She saw him for the first time, just like that, as she leaned backwards, struggling for balance.

Saw the look on his face, the expression he'd tried so hard to hide from her.

Saw the tears covering his cheeks and jaw, the raw pain in his face, the helplessness and anguish in his eyes.

"Luke," she breathed, her weight falling back hard on her wrists, hurting them.

What sort of a witch would she be, what heartless, soulless monster would she have been to see that look and remain cold? How could she just walk away when her heart was breaking a thousand times at the sight of him?

Her husband drew in a hard breath, choked and rough and heart-breaking. His mouth twisted, his eyes squinted, and oh, his face…

Tracy bit her lip, her own eyes watering as she felt the blast of his pain through the invisible thread that tethered them together at the heart. She found her balance somehow, found his shoulder, pulled him to her in a hard embrace. "Luke," she whispered into the soft spikes of his hair. "Baby." She rocked him, stunned by his tears, by the force of them, by the heat of them on her shoulder, by the intensity of his sobs. "Luke…"

She held him to her, and they were silent together. It was a new kind of silence; not the pained, angry emptiness that had populated the past week, but a sad open space in which they huddled together, clinging to the moment, clinging to the warmth of each other. She wanted to find the right words, to beg him for something more, for some idea of what monsters were lurking in his head.

She wanted something to fight, some battle to wage. Not this crushing nothingness. She stroked his hair, kissed his forehead, more mommy than wife, and more wife than anything she'd ever been in her life. She felt it, solid within her, this feeling of wife, and it hurt her just as much as it always had. It hurt her knowing that the feeling was one-sided, yet again. As it had always been, and probably always would be.

But Tracy had trained herself to be strong through pain, and now more than ever she had to be strong. "Luke, talk to me," she murmured into his temple, her hands on his back gentle but reassuring. "Let me help."

He pulled away, shaking his head. His lips parted, like he wanted to speak, but nothing came out. He turned away from her, bending over his folded arms.

"Please…" She had never felt so helpless, so lost. Why was he doing this? Why was he fighting her? He couldn't think she was so desperate, so stupid as to think she could keep him now. She wasn't so delusional that she thought she had a chance of winning him over Laura. "I want to help." It seemed so feeble.

"Back away, Wife," he said in a dark voice. "This is a member's only train wreck."

"I've paid my dues," she whispered. "I get a front row seat. Talk to me." At his continued silence, she added, "_Say something_."

"What do you want me to say, Spanky? Does your dog-eared copy of Emily Post have something in it to cover this situation?"

Tracy breathed in, stung, impressed as she always was at the ability of people to hurt those who were reaching out to them, at the human capacity for casual cruelty. "Ouch," she murmured.

He groaned, dropping his face into his palms. "Just ignore me, Trace," he said, his tone bland and self-deprecating. "I'm not fit for human companionship just now."

"Well, since everybody knows I haven't got a shred of humanity in me, you're just gonna have to try harder."

He twisted slightly, one eye peering up from his hands to stare at her. "What are you after?" he asked suspiciously.

Tracy folded her arms across her chest. The wind over the water was cool, and her jacket wasn't really sufficient to the chilly evening that was descending around them. "Honestly, I don't know what I'm after," she admitted. "When I first saw you sitting here, all I really wanted to do was push you in the water."

Luke chuckled softly. "Glad you reconsidered, my winsome water nymph."

"The splash might have ruined my shoes," she dead-panned, glad at least that he was talking and even laughing a bit. It was better than the sobs, much better than the hollow look in his eyes. "We can't have that, can we?"

He reached out, stroked the line of her chin. Tracy fought herself, fought the chills even his lightest touch sent through her. She had always been weak around certain types of men, had always let her heart lead her in to places she'd have been better off avoiding. She knew she was someday going to have to put a stop to that tendency, but there was no need to start now.

She leaned forward to place a soft kiss on his lips. It wasn't one of the hungry, passionate kisses that kept insinuating themselves into her mind's eye at very inappropriate moments, or one of the deep, soul-warming kisses that populated her dreams. No, it was just a kiss, nothing more or less, nothing spectacular. But it was enough, and Luke's shoulders relaxed, his arms wrapping themselves around her shoulders as he held her in a warm embrace for a long moment.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair, his breath warm. "I should have warned you about…"

"Yeah," she said, her voice too hard for the tenderness of the moment. "Yeah," she croaked again, not wanting to let the emotion show, not wanting to share this much with him. "You should have."

He pulled back slightly, still holding her, but spreading the space between them just a little so that he could face her, so that they couldn't avoid each others' eyes as they had been doing for the better part of the week. "Things have been so weird between us lately, Spanky," he murmured, the expression in his dark eyes incomprehensible to Tracy.

"When have things _not_ been weird between us?"

"I had to go. When Robin told me about the treatment, I _had_ to go," he said. As if it needed saying. Laura had always been the true focus of Luke's life, from the moment he laid eyes on her decades before. Everyone in town knew that, especially Tracy.

"I wouldn't have stopped you," she choked. She tried to pull away, struggled as he maintained his grasp, his embrace, his closeness. Tracy blinked hard, turning her face away, not ready for him to look into her eyes and certainly not ready to look into his…

…and find emptiness.

Or worse, to find fondness where love should have been.

When he wouldn't let her go, she squeezed her lips together hard, eyes shut tight, turning away from the tears that wanted to fall. She didn't want him to have this much power over her. She didn't want him to know how much it hurt. Tracy had never been first in any man's life. She'd never looked into a man's eyes and _known_ that she was his one and only. She'd spent the better part of five decades learning to stomach that reality, only to have this man sweep into her life, burst through her defenses, and turn her world upside down again.

Neither of them said a word for a long time, although Tracy allowed him to rest her head on his chest, to stroke her hair with his strong, large hands. She bit down the thought of how she much wanted those hands on her body, not just her hair, not just her cheek. How much she wanted his mouth on hers, not just for the briefest of moments, but for an eternity, for the time it took for two hearts to become hopelessly intertwined. Her cheek lay against his chest, and she could hear the faint thumping of his heart beneath her. He was warm. He was real.

And she knew what she had to do. "I think," she barely breathed out the words. "I think we should just…" His heartbeat kept interrupting her train of thought, a low counterpart to the lapping sounds of the waves beneath the pier. She'd never been very musical, not like her sons or her mother, but for that moment Tracy felt the combination of water and heartbeats to be the most incredible music ever created, the most miraculous symphony any human could ever hear. She wanted to be silent, to let it surround her.

"Sweetheart?" he whispered, and the brutal irony of his word choice was enough to break the spell.

Tracy Quartermaine had never been anyone's sweetheart. Lover, wife, seductress, ball and chain, yes--but never something so wholesome, never something so true as a sweetheart. It destroyed something inside of her, hearing his voice wrapped around this sucker punch of a word. The crushed remains of whatever died in her every time he came _that close_ to being what she needed provided her a lift, a pedestal on which to stand, just enough leverage to get the words out of her mouth at last. "I think we should get a divorce," she whispered into his shoulder. "I think we should end it now, while we can still be friends."

His arms stiffened around her, and there was a long moment of silence before she felt his hand on her chin, lifting her face up, forcing her to look him in the eyes. The look of utter shock and disappointment there almost broke her resolve. Almost.

"Spanky, I said I was sorry."

She almost laughed. Sometimes he was such a seven-year-old. "I know. And I've already forgiven you." Tracy placed her palm over his wrist, the combined weight of their hands heavy against her skin. "I still think we should end it now, while we can do it amicably, while we can walk away relatively unscathed."

The look in his eyes told her beyond a doubt that they'd long since passed the point where either of them would come out of this unscathed. "Why now?" he whispered. "Why now, instead of when I threw you in bed with Coleman--"

"I _tried_ to give you a divorce back then," she reminded him.

"--Or Scorpio? Why not when I tried to gaslight you, or when I brought a fucking plague back from the Maarkam Islands and almost killed your kid?" His voice was rising, and his grip around her grew hard and unrelenting. "Why the hell would you go and drop a bomb like this now?"

Tracy felt the own fire rising. She pushed out of his arms so hard they both had to grab for support, hands clutching at the weathered boards that formed the pier. "You have no right to be angry with me. I've put up with more crap from you than from any ten men I've ever known."

"And you choose _now_ to get touchy about it?" He was yelling at her, his eyes blazing with fury. "Come on, Spanky, we both know what this is about. Do us both a favor, and be honest with yourself."

"Be honest with myself? Alright, here's honest for you." She shook her head, pivoting away so that she didn't have to face him. "I've already transferred your half of the fifteen million into a separate trust for you. The divorce papers are drawn up and ready to sign. They have been since you bailed on me this summer."

"You're not leaving me because of this summer, and we both know it."

"I'm leaving you because I'm Tracy Fucking Quartermaine," she hissed at him. "I'm Tracy Quartermaine, and it's about time I started acting like it." She shrugged his hand off her shoulder, no longer fighting the tears that streamed down her cheeks. "I'm leaving you because I'm done with living my life on somebody else's time table."

"Tracy," he whispered. His breath was hot on her neck, his scent everywhere, combining with the smell of water and windswept wood, confusing her senses. "Tracy, I know you're scared…"

"I'm not scared," she growled. "I'm fed up. I'm fed up with you and with your mind games and with your freeloading--"

"I heard them, Tracy. I heard what Monica and Bobbie said today at the hospital." She cringed as his hand squeezed around her shoulder, unrelenting. "I know you heard them, too. I know you heard them talking about you, about how wrong it was for you to keep me trapped in this marriage, about how when Laura came out of her--"

"I heard it the first time," she whispered. Her tone was flat and lifeless, slack against her throat and devoid of any passion. She didn't fight his hand anymore, didn't fight her facial muscles from going slack as well. Her expression wasn't a frown. It wasn't a sob. It was just…nothing. "That's not the reason I'm ending it, Luke. I don't care about gossip. They've been gossiping about me since I was fourteen and let Richard McArdle see my bra at the freshman dance." She ignored his chuckle. It wasn't going to soften her now. "I am tired of being second choice, Luke. Hell, at this point, second choice would be a trade-up. I'm lucky if I rate fourth or fifth with you. Holly, Skye, Laura. Anybody else I should know about, moving me down the ladder?"

"Spanky," he cajoled, and suddenly she felt very unimpressed by his moves. It was an old song, and she didn't really feel like listening to it.

"Face it, Luke, our marriage is dangling on the end of a very fine thread." She turned to face him, her expression hard and remorseless. "If this treatment works, we both know what's going to happen…"

"We don't know if it's going to work."

"Wrong answer," she said. "And if it doesn't work, well then, you still have Old Trace to fall back on." She narrowed her eyes, piercing him with the ferocity of her gaze. "Well, _Old Trace_ has no intention of putting her life in a vacuum while you wait around to see if the woman you really want comes out of her rutabaga state."

"Stop it," he warned.

"Oh, forgive me. I forgot. We're all supposed to dance around Poor Luke's fragile heart. Well, I have a heart, too, and frankly I didn't bring my damned tap shoes."

"You have no idea what's in my heart," he said darkly. "You have no _clue_ what I am, or what I'm capable of."

"Will you please just give the 'Luke's Dark Side' thing a rest? I know all about your poor tortured soul, Luke Spencer, and frankly, until you've withheld heart medication from your dying father, you really have nothing to say to me about dark sides."

Luke blew out a hard breath, lifting his hand so swiftly that, for a moment, Tracy thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he brushed it through his hair with one ferocious swipe, his entire face contorting with an odd combination of pain, rage and loathing. "You want honest, Spanky? You _really_ want honest? Well, here's honest for you, my pretty pink peppermint fucking popsicle." He spat the words at her like bullets, and each alliterative syllable just made it worse. "When Patrick Drake warned me that the treatment might kill Laura, you wanna know what my first reaction was? My first, overwhelming, undeniable fucking emotion?" He paused to breathe, his entire body shaking with emotion. "Relief. That's what I felt when this kid told me my decision might kill Laura. Relief. Overwhelming relief. That I'd be done with it, that I'd be free of it. That finally this nightmare would be over…." The last was said through sobs, and then he was crying again, then he was doubled over again in pain, rocking back and forth. "That's what I felt, Tracy," he mumbled into his hands. "That's what I wanted for this gentle woman whose only crime was to fall for somebody like me."

Tracy swallowed the blade that seemed to have formed in her throat, choking, cutting, hurting her so badly it rocked her to the core. "You…_didn't_ cause Laura's catatonia, Luke." Her voice was gravelly, forced through a throat suddenly too narrow for the space of both words and oxygen. "You didn't."

"I forced her, pushed her too fast, too far…"

And Tracy knew Luke wasn't there anymore, that his mind and his spirit were nowhere near the pier that supported his body. He was years in the past, Tracy guessed, in that ramshackle barn where he'd hidden Laura to protect her from the law, to protect her from the reporters and photographers, to protect her from her own disastrous truth.

"You didn't cause her to get sick, Luke," she repeated. This time it was _her_ hand reaching for his shoulder. "You didn't cause her to crack."

"I _know_ it wasn't my fault," he snarled, shaking off her hand, his back to her. "It was Baldwin. He let his hatred of me override any concern he might have had for Laura, even though he once swore he loved her."

"No, Luke." Tracy forced her hand onto his shoulder, forced him to turn and face her. "It wasn't your fault and it wasn't Scotty Baldwin's fault and it wasn't the damned paparazzi." She gasped for breath, her pulse racing now, her mind rushing places she might have avoided had her emotions not been running so high. "Laura didn't crack because of any of those things. She cracked because she was weak. Because she's always been weak. Because she never had the strength to fight, or to stand up and face the darkness all around her." She paused, waiting for the returning blow, waiting for the inevitable fallout of daring to speak poorly of Saint Laura of Port Charles.

But it didn't come. Luke just stared at her, his dark eyes moist and unfathomable. They watched each other in silence, neither of them choosing to speak, neither of them moving from the position they were in.

Finally, Tracy said softly, "I'm sorry, Luke. I know you love her, and I know you want to think the best of her. Laura was…_is_ a sweet woman, gentle and caring and good. But the world isn't always gentle or caring or good, and women like Laura tend to get chewed up unless they can develop either a spine or a shell."

"Like you did?" It was a whisper, just barely loud enough be heard over the lapping waters beneath them.

"We're not talking about me."

"I've seen it, Tracy," he said, leaning forward. "I've seen that softness, that tenderness inside of you that you try so hard to hide." She tried to shrug him off, but he persisted, his voice soft and honest. "I've seen what you live through, what you put up with--and not just from me." He shook his head, a sad expression on his face. "It wasn't supposed to be like this, Tracy," he murmured, moving closer. "It wasn't supposed to go down like this. Just an in and out job."

"What are you talking about?" she breathed, his nearness and her own emotions confusing her, throwing her off balance.

"Marry you. Get the alimony. Get the hell out." His fingertips brushed her cheek, sending a thrill of shivers through her body. "You had to get stubborn. You had to get creative."

"Stop," she begged.

"Tracy Quartermaine, Chief Bitch and Bottle Washer. Ice water in her veins," he whispered.

She felt his eyes on her like a microscope, like she was some fascinating experiment he wanted to study. She struggled not to squirm, struggled not to cringe under his examination. "Luke…"

"It's your fault," he breathed. "You weren't supposed to be decent. You weren't supposed to be warm and fascinating and tough and fragile."

"Don't you dare, Luke Spencer," she hissed. "Don't you _dare_ pull that 'I treated you like dirt because I cared too much about you' bullshit on me."

Luke laughed. "Actually, I treated you like dirt because I'm a shit, and you made it entertaining."

"Stop," she said, laughing in spite of herself. "Please just stop."

"You wanna know why I left this summer, Spanky? Do you really want to know?"

"We're not talking about this summer anymore."

"It was the night of Justus' funeral."

"Don't…." She didn't want to think about that night, about that kiss, about how she'd felt, the confusion and the desire and the pain of that night.

"You just listened to me. You let me open up." He scratched his head, the spikes of his hair wild and lopsided under his hand. "And I got this feeling, this completely unexpected insight. Nothing major, no fireworks or violins, just--hey, I'm glad I'm married to this woman. I'm lucky to have her. I like being around her."

"You overwhelm me with sentiment," she murmured.

"Then I went to see Laura, to tell her about Justus. Same as always, just me and her in that awful place. Same empty gaze. Same soulless eyes." He shook his head. "That night, same old nightmare..." He drew in a heavy breath. "The same nightmare I've had for the last almost five years. It was in the house on Charles Street. I was running through the place, room after room after room, searching. And I ran into that same room, the one I always find myself in when I have this dream. Same damned chair. Always that same ugly chair, and the hand on the arm, limp, heavy. And I rushed to the chair, Trace, like I always do." He stopped, his eyes boring into her like a laser beam. "But it wasn't her, Baby. It wasn't Laura. It was _you_ in that chair. You with your hair all a mess, _you_ with the dark circles under your eyes, blank, vacant." His voice trailed off. He bit his lip, eyes lowered. "The next morning I woke up and all I wanted to do was run. I didn't care where or why. When Holly called, it was all I needed."

"I'm not Laura," Tracy whispered, reaching out to stroke her fingers through his hair. "I'm not Laura."

"I couldn't live with it. I couldn't survive it."

"I'm _not_ Laura. I'm not going to crack just because the going gets tough." She smoothed his hair, a never ending battle with his messy spikes. "If almost sixty years as a Quartermaine hasn't turned me into a rutabaga, Luke, nothing you can come up will do the trick."

"You overwhelm me with your sentiment," he echoed, taking her hand in his. "You're tough, Baby, but you're not that tough. There's something inside of you that can be hurt, that can be broken, and I don't want to be the one who finally pushes you there."

"So you push me away instead? So you hurt me in a million little ways trying to avoid that one big one?"

"It wasn't supposed to go down this way," he whispered again, leaning forward to kiss her softly. He lingered there, eyes closed, his breath mingling with hers as he spoke against her lips. "I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you."

"Sorry," she breathed, leaning into the kiss, unable to resist anymore, unable to fight it. She was exhausted. She was beaten, and she knew it. Her heart was too strong, just as it had always been, just as it would always be. No matter how hard her brain worked to protect her, that damned heart always got in the way. Now it forced her against him, forced her into his waiting arms, tricked her into melting against him, letting him devour her, destroy her, consume her. It wanted to be in love, wanted to be swept away, and it didn't care who or what it hurt--including Tracy herself--to get what it craved. "Luke," she moaned as his body pressed against her, as his warmth overwhelmed her. She wanted to say it over and over again, like a schoolgirl trying it on for size, like a character in some silly romance. But she held herself back, controlled herself with Herculean effort. "Stop…."

"I don't want a divorce, Tracy."

"I'm not going to hang around here, waiting to see if you're going to leave me for Laura or if I'm going to be your consolation prize. I'm too old for that, Luke. No matter how hard it hurts, no matter how much I just want to ignore it, we both know what needs to be done."

"I _don't_ want a divorce." He held her close, resting his chin on the top of her head. "Baby, please…."

"Do you really want to wait around, see what happens, and deal with this when Laura's feelings are part of the mix? Do you want her to come out of that nightmare to find that her husband--"

"Ex-husband."

"Is married to the town bitch?" Tracy shook her head, squirming out of his grasp. "Let's be honest with ourselves. If the treatment works, how long is this feeling between us going to last? How strong is it against all that history?"

"It's gonna be complicated, Tracy, I know. But--"

"And if it doesn't work, I will always feel like what's left over, what you got instead of what you really wanted."

"I want you…"

She was silent. She didn't want to examine those three words of his, didn't want to try to figure out which of the many nuanced meanings were implied by his statement.

"And if she dies?" Luke asked darkly.

Tracy closed her eyes. It was really beginning to get cold, and her arms were now tight across her chest. "If she dies, I will make a very generous donation in her name to whatever charity she supported." She cast him a look. "No doubt something involving puppies and babies and sunflowers," she said wryly.

Luke grinned. "Yeah, she was always about the cute."

"You love her. And you have no choice in this matter, Luke Spencer. We will be getting divorced." She shrugged her shoulders, shivering, and he took off his coat and draped it around her. "Your only choice is whether we part as friends or as enemies."

"And how I'm going to win you back," he added as he fixed the collar around her neck.

"You're welcome to try," she said. Her heart was screaming in outrage inside of her. How dare you, it accused. He's so close, he wants us, he wants to make love to us, to stay with us. How could you throw this away? But Tracy knew she had to be stronger than this, and that meant pulling away, for now at least. She knew Luke had to be free to figure this whole thing out, without complications from her.

She also knew she had to have room to figure Luke out, what he meant to her, where he fit into her life. And she wasn't going to do that with him underfoot, mucking things up with hormones and crooked smiles and unruly hair that tempted her fingertips.

"We should go," she said. "It's getting late, and you have to be at the hospital early in the morning." This time Luke helped her to rise, and she slipped her feet back into her pumps. The air had chilled the insoles, and she shivered at the unexpected coolness against her arches.

He was about to speak when his cell phone rang. There was a long pause, heavy with expectation, before he pulled out his phone and answered it. "This is Spencer." He listened, nodding occasionally, then said, "Okay. Yeah, thanks. I'll be there." Then he snapped the phone shut, his face white in the moonlight. "She's responding to the pen light."

Tracy felt her stomach clench, but she fought it. Resolve, Tracy, she said to herself. Tough it out, kid, she told her heart. "You should go."

"Will you come with me?"

The look on his face broke her heart, and she was tempted to go with him, to brave the stares and innuendos and unspoken accusations just so she could protect him from pain. But she had to be strong enough, stronger than Laura, stronger than Luke. "You go," she said. "I'll see you when you get home."

And then she was gone and Luke was alone, staring after her for a long moment before he turned and headed back to the hospital to see his angel.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

13


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